No Gein II: An Alternate Horror Part Eight

Chapter Eight: Blood Ties

Small town Indiana, summer 1976

“Now let’s approach this cautiously,” William suggested, “let me do the talking.” Marilyn understood her husband’s concern. Rumors went that this family was mixed up with the mob, so when she insisted on coming out here to see if they knew anything, he refused to let her come out alone. After leaving their daughter with William’s mother, they drove to this little town that was the end of this trail Marilyn had been following for years. Hopefully, this would be the end of the journey.

William knocked on the door. There was no answer so he knocked again. Mariyln grew anxious and called out, “Is anybody home?” Her heart sank as it appeared the house was empty. Just as they were about to leave the door flew open. The older man looked like he was in a rush as he breathed heavily while sweat hung from his brow.

“Whatever you got we ain’t interested!” The man shouted immediately.

“Sir, we’re not selling anything.” William responded. “We just want to talk.”

“So, you’re one of those religious assholes. You can go straight to hell!” 

William answered “No sir we just..”

Then, an old woman’s voice cackled from inside. “Get them outta here we got business to take care of!” 

As the door began to close on them Marilyn quickly stated, “We’re here about Mary Hogan!”

The door stopped, then slowly turned back as the old man looked them over for a minute. She noticed the small birthmark around his lip as he said, “Well come on in.” 

A distinct aroma hung in the air that they couldn’t quite place as they entered the immaculate home. Fine china sat in display cases and Norman Rockwell paintings hung on the wall making this home a diorama of American life. “You can call me Whitman,” the old man said after William and Marilyn introduced themselves. “Uh, Emily, we got some company!” The old man announced.

“Now’s not a time for company.” The older female voice answered. “Besides, I only got so much meat here!”

“It’s OK, we don’t need to eat,” William said politely, “we just….”

“Oh, but I insist.” Whitman said as they walked into a living room. “My wife’s making her specialty, secret recipe from her family, kept them alive during the depression!” he explained with a gleam in his eye.

Marilyn then smiled as she heard the cooing of an infant. Before them on the couch, sat a young well dressed man holding an infant. “Oh, what a cute baby!” Marilyn observed. “Is that yours?”

“Uh, yes, yes it is. This is Clarice.” The man said. “You can call me Frost. Come on, sit down and have a look.” As she sat down Frost held the baby up and asked, “Would you like to hold her?” 

Marilyn reached her arms out toward the baby. Embracing the infant, she remembered when her own little girl was just a baby. Her and William had talked about having another one, but he wasn’t so sure. She could tell by the look on her husband’s face that he also wasn’t sure about this situation. Something wasn’t quite right, and she didn’t like whatever that smell was from the kitchen. Still standing, William asked “Uh, may I use your restroom.”

“Oh it’s down this hallway,” Frost said as he stood up. “I’ll show you.”

Frost and William walked away while Marilyn played with the baby. She was always good with kids, but this baby got irritable as soon as she held it. Marilyn presumed the infant wasn’t used to strangers yet. Glancing around the room, it seemed from the nearby bookshelf this family was well read. She spied books by Shakespeare, Chaucer, and all manner of authors. It appeared this baby would grow up in a cultured home.

Cultured or not, babies still spit up sometimes. Marilyn thought nothing of it as as an older woman emerged from the kitchen with a few napkins and put the baby in her nearby high chair.

Before going back into the kitchen, Whitman introduced the older woman as his wife Emily. While Marilyn wiped herself off, Whitman seemed anxious himself as he asked, “So where is old Bloody Mary now?”

Marilyn never heard that nickname before, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know how this person that might have been her mother got it. “Well actually I was hoping you could…”

Her answer was interrupted by the sound of a struggle. Frost and a much larger man each had an arm of her husband as they drug him into the living room. Williams nose had been bleeding and it was evident that there had been a brief moment of fisticuffs.

“I knew you were a snitch!” Frost shouted as Marilyn gasped.

“I told you not to let those assholes in!” Emily said in an ‘I told you so’ manner as she returned to the living room, meat cleaver in hand. Gesturing to the couch she ordered, “Sit that sack a shit down here. Looks like we’ll have some more meat after all!” she said with a wicked smile.

“And look what Milton found!” Frost held up William’s pistol as they shoved William onto the couch next to his wife.

“Frost’s intuition is never wrong.” the larger man observed. “Who sent you?” 

Whitman grabbed Marilyn by the hair shouting, “Never mind that! Where is that Mary bitch! What did she do with the family jewels?”

Marilyn burst into tears pleading “I don’t know anything about it! Please, just let us go.”

“Boys, go down to the basement and bring the meat up.” Whitman ordered the two men who evidently were his sons while Emily held the meat cleaver to William’s throat. “Show them what happened to the last one that tried messing with our family!”

As Marilyn recounted the story to her now adult daughter, she remembered those heavy footsteps descending down to the basement, then those same footsteps ascending back up. ”I think your father and I knew what was coming, but when they wheeled it in, and your father saw it, he just screamed. He screamed like I never heard a person scream before. I don’t even remember screaming myself.” she said with a sob. “I think he screamed for the both of us.”

“What was it?” Kristina asked.

Marilyn was now crying in the present as she remembered those tears shed so far back in the past. “I’m sorry, it was just, it was so long ago. That poor man, his head was bashed in.” She went on to explain, “His face was completely gone, part of his jaw was still dangling, I could see his teeth while they were hanging upside down facing us.”

“This little bastard tried to swindle us!” Marilyn remembered Frost screaming. “Our family was trying to get into legitimate business.” He then pointed to the larger handsome man continuing, “My brother Milton here is gonna be a movie star someday, so we thought we’d invest our hard-earned money into one of those horror shows, but this crooked Hollywood son of a bitch cheated us! You probably came to check on him didn’t you!”

“No, no, please just let us go!” Marilyn cried desperately. “We don’t know anything about this, we’ll never tell anyone we promise!” 

Whitman had walked out of the room while the sons loomed over her. Whitman’s voice taunted “Oh, we know you won’t talk.” Whitman said as he returned with a bloody sledgehammer, bits of bone and flesh still dripping off it. “I’ll see to that!”

“Wait, you said I get the next one!” Milton whined.

“I get the next one!” Frost argued back to his brother. A morbid sibling rivalry unfolded before the two hapless victims. Baby Clarice then started crying, and Whitman ordered Frost to pick up the baby. Frost took her out of her highchair, which seemingly ended the argument as Milton exited the living room.

“What were they going to do?” Kristina asked. 

“I couldn’t imagine,” her mother answered, “but I would find out soon enough.”

The house then filled with the roar of a motor. Smoke poured into the room as Milton emerged with a chainsaw. The baby giggled and Marilyn screamed while Whitman again grabbed her by the hair, “I’m gonna give you one more chance you fucking bitch!, Where are those god damned diamonds!?!”

“I don’t know!” Marilyn wailed. 

“Talk bitch!” Whitman yelled uncontrollably as the young couple froze with fear. Marilyn eyes avoided the sawblade as it inched closer and closer. Her gaze instead fell on the hapless unknown victim before her, his head smashed beyond recognition. Only one horrifying thought hovered in her mind.

“Oh my god, is that what you did to my mom?”

Instantly, Marilyn felt the grip in her hair lessen, and a different expression emerged on Whitman’s face, as if all the violence wiped away from his eyes. His old, calloused fingers brushed her cheek, and for a moment, he looked like a different person. His face turned back to anger when Marilyn, sensing her chance, rose towards him. She pushed the sledgehammer back, which by a stroke of luck struck the running chainsaw. Sparks of metal flew before the saw bounced back, the tip of which struck Milton in the face. The would-be chainsaw murderer squealed in pain as William bit into Emily’s arm and pushed the old woman down. 

“RUN!” Marilyn shouted as her and her husband bolted out the door towards their car. Whitman followed in pursuit, but he wasn’t fast enough to catch up to them. Now outside, Frost grabbed the sledgehammer off of his father and drew it back, about to throw it like a javelin of death. 

“No, wait!” Whitman said, yanking his son’s arm back which interfered with his throw. The sledgehammer still made it into the air, but its aim was off. In its landing, the steel hammer grazed Marilyn’s hip as she cried out in shock and pain, causing her to fall into the passenger’s seat before the door closed behind her. William rapidly turned the car’ s ignition, and a cloud of dust soon lay between them and the madhouse of death.

“What the hell was that!” Marilyn thought out loud William sped down the freeway.

There was no time to process their horrific experience as the sound of metal on metal shrieked in the air. Sparks flew from the car as a chainsaw struck the roof. Marilyn looked in horror to see Frost driving a pickup truck next to him. Milton was in the truck’s cab, blood splattered over his face as he swung his chainsaw.

Even more horrifying was the sight of Frost drawing a pistol. “Haha, you fucking bitch!” she heard him laugh as she ducked instinctively.

“He’s got your gun!” Marilyn cried out. In the chaos she didn’t even hear the shot fire, but she saw the blood squirt from her husband’s neck as his body slumped over, causing their station wagon to crash into the barricade. The pickup sped ahead before she heard the squealing of its breaks. Her hip throbbed horrible dull pain as she crawled over on the lap of her husband’s still warm corpse. There was no time to mourn, only time to survive as her two stalkers approached on foot. Luckily, the car was still drivable as she shifted gears pulling it to reverse. The maniacs laughed as she shifted back into drive and with a scream of pain and anger slammed her foot on the gas.

Frost fired the gun again, sending another bullet through the windshield. The hot metal passed harmlessly through the rear glass pane as Marilyn pointed the wagon directly towards her husband’s assailant. Her scream was now pure rage as she could see the killers laughing face. His body soon slammed into the car and Marilyn could hear the squishing sound of Frost’s head under the tires and the sound of the chainsaw making one last desperate strike at the passenger side door. Soon the lone brother was but an image in Marilyn’s rear view mirror as she sped away in terror and exhaustion.

Back in the present, Kristina was astonished by the tale she’d just heard. “My god,” she asked, “Didn’t you call the cops?”

“I couldn’t think straight. What happened was so crazy I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I didn’t think you would believe me.”

“What did you do then?”

“I just kept driving.” Marilyn cried again. “Once I was sure they were gone, I took the car into a wooded area and made it look like we slammed into a tree. When your father got shot the bullet went straight through his neck, so as far as anyone knew it was an accident. I’m so sorry honey.” Kristina embraced her mom. She couldn’t begin to understand the impossible burden that had just been lifted from her shoulders. What she did understand was that she had to find out more about what happened to Mary.

On a long and lonesome Illinois Highway, 1976 

George sat in the back seat reading his Spiderman comic while his sister read some book. It was called “Who’s there,” or something like that. Even the title sounded boring. Not as boring as this long drive was though. It felt like it was taking forever to get to their new home.

“What’s that?” He heard his mom say as their car slowed down. 

“Looks like there’s been some accident.” his dad said. When George looked up from his comic he saw a pickup truck on the side of the road. Didn’t look like it crashed, but behind it was some debris and a black mark on the barricade. “Maybe it was a hit and run.” his dad said. 

“Just keep driving.” His mom insisted. George knew his dad probably wanted to stop and help, but George felt the same way his mom did. They didn’t have time, it was still a long way to Bethlehem Pennsylvania and their new home.  

Looking back, his eyes couldn’t believe what they saw. Beside the pickup truck was a large man with a face that was covered in blood. He had a big chainsaw and was waving it through the air like a maniac. George stood up in the back seat and excitedly exclaimed. “Saw-man!” believing he’d just seen the character from that Texas movie that came out a few years ago.

“George get your ass back in the seat!” his father scolded. It took just a moment for that sight to leave his vision, but the image of a man dancing by the side of the road swinging a chainsaw would forever be burned in the mind of this future film director.