Prologue
2000, age 12
A primal scream tore through the air and ripped me from my sleep. Not a sound, not exactly, more like the cry of a dying animal as it took its last breath. With a vise around my chest, cold dread clawed its way up from the marrow of my bones.
The older boys were gone. Their empty bunks gaped like vacant eye sockets in the pre-dawn gloom. Older than me by several years, they’d suffered the rot long before I arrived, and the evil that slithered around this place left its mark. They were as vile as he was. Tormentors, flawed, nasty, cultivated and honed to mimic their upbringing. Their absence, while welcomed, didn’t bode well for me.
I didn’t know why I chose to get up from the safety of my little bed, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Crossing the hall, the scrape of my bare feet on the old, splintered wooden floor echoed in the oppressive silence.
Mandy’s cough, a ragged, rasping sound, hit me like a physical blow. She was like me, and we came to this place at the same time. But I remembered where I came from. I would always remember. Mandy wouldn’t. She was too small when we left. This hovel was the only place she knew. Aunt Jewel said it was allergies, but she also lied, especially when the government lady came around to check on Mandy and me.
That was when Aunt Jewel pretended to care.
When they all did.
The last time the government lady had asked about the bruises blooming on Mandy’s arms—bruises Uncle Vernonalways swore she’d gotten when she’d fallen. Uncle Vernon hated Mandy’s weakness, her fragility, believing it to be a constant reminder of his own weakness. He’d called her a burden, an unwelcome shadow clinging to the edges of his life.
I hadn’t understood then, but I understood now with a sickening certainty. If I didn’t get Mandy out of this place soon, she would become its next victim.
Making my way down the stairs, I heard a low thrumming sound coming from the living room, a vibration through the floorboards, a sound like grinding teeth, a sound that smelled of bile and fear. It clawed at the edges of my hearing, making the hairs on my neck stand on end. The air itself felt thick, heavy, charged with a malevolent energy that prickled my skin.
My eyes, gritty with sleep, struggled to pierce the darkness.
Hunger gnawed at my belly, a familiar, hollow ache. I was always hungry. Always wanting. Always needing something I couldn’t name, something that seemed to grow stronger with every passing moment, reflecting the creeping horror that coiled in my gut.
I stumbled toward the living room, toward the unseen, the unknown, the monstrous thing that had stolen me from my sleep. And for a horrifying moment, I wondered if it had taken them too... or if I had finally died and this was Hell.
The reek of stale beer and something acrid, something chemical, hit me first.
Then, Jacob. The youngest boy. Uncle Vernon’s worn leather chair, usually a symbol of his lazy patriarchal authority, was now a grotesque throne. Jacob wasn’t sitting; he was collapsed over it, a broken marionette, the needle still embedded in his arm, a crimson stain blossoming on the worn fabric. Uncle Vernon, his back a knotted landscape of muscle and sweat, stood behind him naked as he grunted, a low, guttural sound while his hipsbumped against Jacob’s back and his hands firmly held Jacob against the old leather chair.
A strangled whimper sliced through the air.
Aunt Jewel. Sprawled on the couch, her faded thread-bare cotton robe flung open, revealing the stark white of her skin, a canvas marred by the obscene tableau unfolding above her. White foam, thick and viscous, bubbled from her lips, each bubble a silent scream. Evan, the oldest, a monstrous parody of his former self, was on top of her, his rhythmic grunting a sickening counterpoint to her silent suffering. The sight of him—his slick, glistening skin, his uncontrolled movements—burned itself onto my retinas.
“Aunt Jewel?” My words caught in my throat, a fragile thing against the brutal reality unfolding before me.
“Get the fuck out of here, Jackson!” Evan roared, his voice raw, a fractured animalistic sound. His movements intensified, sending fresh bursts of foam spilling from Aunt Jewel’s lips, a grotesque fountain of decay.
A guttural chuckle from Uncle Vernon. “That little bastard is mine first,” he rasped, pushing away from Jacob—naked, his stiff penis jutted out like a sword, a pathetic counterpoint to the blood dripping and ooze seeping from Jacob’s backside. The sight of it, a stark symbol of Uncle Vernon’s depravity, sent a fresh wave of nausea through me.
I stumbled back, my mind reeling. The primal horror of it, the raw, brutal violation, eclipsed even my understanding of the animal kingdom. I’d seen the brutal efficiency of nature, witnessed the mating rituals of animals, the birth of life and the swiftness of death. The sterile diagrams in my science textbook paled in comparison to this. The memory of the neighbor’s dog Baxter humping Miss Buttercup, the subsequent litter of puppies—it was a childish memory, a naïve echo of this nightmarish reality.
“Jackson! Get the fuck out of here!” Evan’s voice was a strangled cry, his body trembling with a frantic energy as he remained frozen above Aunt Jewel’s lifeless form. Her eyes were open, vacant, staring into an infinite abyss. The foam continued to dribble, forming a growing puddle on the carpet—a stark, white pool of oblivion.
“Come here, you little shit,” Uncle Vernon sneered, his eyes glinting with a feral intensity. He lunged towards me. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the haze of horror.
I spun, a desperate animal fleeing the slaughter, and bolted back upstairs, slamming myself into Mandy’s room, the desperate click of the lock a fragile barrier against the nightmare unfolding beyond.
The door shuddered under Uncle Vernon’s weight. I knew he’d come for me; his appetite was insatiable, and I was the only one left. Mandy and I had to get out. I crept to the window, the mountain air a fleeting promise of freedom. The silence outside was taunt, a reminder of how close we were to salvation, yet so far. I could almost taste the pine-scented breeze, feel the rush of the wind in my hair as we fled down the mountain. But we were trapped, caged by the very nature that had once been my sanctuary.
Mandy stirred, coughing as her eyes started to flutter open, the innocence of her youth a stark contrast to the depravity we endured. “Jackson, I’m scared,” she whispered, her voice trembling.
I wanted to lie, to protect her from the truth a little while longer, but the time for lies was over. With the door creaking under Vernon’s assault, I knew we had only moments left. “We have to go now,” I urged. “It’s not safe here.” She didn’t question, didn’t hesitate. The mountain had taught us both to trust our instincts, and our instincts screamed for us to run.
Too late. The word clawed at my throat, a physical pain mirroring the icy dread that gripped me. Mandy, a wisp of a girl with eyes that held the haunted wisdom of someone far older, fumbled for her threadbare blanket. The flimsy thing offered no protection against what followed. The splintering of wood, a sound like bones cracking, announced Uncle Vernon’s arrival. He wasn’t just a man; he was a storm made flesh, a whirlwind of rage and shadowed intent. His breath, rancid with stale beer and the stink of violence, washed over me as he lunged.
