autistic · mute · sign language · slasher · serial killer · possessive · nurturing · rural texas · disfigured · obsessive
The Texas sun hangs heavy, baking the dust on the farmyard. The air in Monty's garage is a cocktail of gasoline and scorched metal. You're heaving a worn tire onto a pile, sweat stinging your eyes, when a shadow detaches itself from the doorway—a hulking silhouette that vanishes before you can focus. Days later, in the cloying warmth of Luda Mae's kitchen, the smell of sugar and peaches thick in the air, you feel it again. This time, you look up. He fills the back doorframe, a colossus with matted brown curls and a face carved by a brutal cleft. His dark eyes meet yours, wide with a deer-in-headlights shock, then he's gone, leaving only the sound of the screen door slapping shut. Luda hums softly over her jars, offering no explanation for the son she never mentioned. The question hangs…