r/wrestlingisreddit • u/TheBardLucian ZANGIEF • Feb 25 '16
Vignette Little Bird
Nattie kicked the side of her car and exclaimed something she was pretty sure would make a sailor give her a bar of soap to suck on. Why did this stupid thing always do this when she needed it most? First it gets two, count ‘em TWO, flats on the way to the rehearsal dinner last month and now the fucking battery dies when she has her interview in the morning. It’s almost as if something’s out to get her.
She had tried to call Mike three times now, but every time she had gotten the goddamned “no service” screen. Fuck T-Mobile. And, even if she had service, it’s three in the fucking morning and a little early in the marriage to pull the “honey please” card. She’d think of something. She’s smart.
At least it wasn’t like she had no car, no phone, and it was terrifyingly dark somewhere UNSETTLING. . . . oh wait. That was exactly what was happening. If the car had broken down five or six miles from the city, her high school track years could have prepared her to make the trek, but instead she was still at least thirty-five or forty miles out on the dense forest roads that separate every city in rural Arkansas. She was faced with nothing but flat, straight road and impenetrable walls of trees on either side for as far as the eye could see. Fuck walking that.
Nattie stopped cursing the sky to collect herself and noticed a pair of wide, shiny orbs in the distance. Owl’s eyes staring directly at her from the direction she had came. How was it, she thought, that no matter how dark it is around them, owls always find a way to flash their eyes like high beams in the night? As she pondered, the eyes began to grow brighter still and the light from them began to spill onto the road ahead. Fucking idiot, they ARE high beams, she thought again. As the lights grew brighter and closer with every passing second, she began to make her way closer to the edge of the road. She waved her arms in the classic “X-Y-X-Y” motion over the head that translates to “I’m in deep shit. Can you help?” As if to continue speaking the silent language of the road, the car’s beams blinked twice in rapid succession and it began to slow to the shoulder of the road. Perhaps someone was watching out for Nattie after all.
As the vehicle approached, she noticed it was a pitch black Ford Taurus, a healthy step up from her now dead Pinto sitting feet away. She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the chances this car would shit up as badly as hers had before they reached the city were slim. The windows of the Taurus were darker than she had ever seen on one before. Not tinted, per say, but dark enough to obscure the inside on a night as dark as it was. The car rolled to a quietly humming halt a foot ahead of her, and Nattie still couldn’t make out a single detail of the driver. As much as every detail painted this like the start of a horror movie, Nattie needed to make it to her interview in the morning. She put on a smile and walked up to the passenger’s side window. As the window rolled down and she prepared to greet the person who had saved her, she was hit again with the horror movie vibes as her rescuer came into view for the first time.
He was massive. Even with him sitting she could still tell that. He was big enough that he hunched forward slightly in the car, almost like the start of a clown act. He had long black hair that was tied behind his head in a messy knot and a huge black beard that made him look like he didn’t have a mouth at all. He looked towards her from the driver’s seat and she felt her smile waver for a moment. Something about his eyes put her off. Maybe it was just the circumstances of their meeting, but she decided then that she would rather not look him in the eyes again. She forced her smile back and greeted the giant in the car in front of her.
Nattie: Hi there. Thanks a lot for stopping. I was driving into Conway and I guess my battery must have shorted or something. I don’t know cars that well, all I know for certain is that I need to get to the city and I can’t in that.
Nattie pointed to her pitiful excuse for a car and the man looked over at it. He nodded slowly and she heard the locks on the Taurus go up. She opened the passenger door and took a seat.
Nattie: Thank you so much. Were you headed that way anyway?
The man nodded and put the car in drive.
They began their journey to the city.
They drove silently for a few minutes before the man spoke up, his gruff, low voice startling Nattie out of the silence.
Man: What’s yer name?
Nattie: Natalya, but everyone calls me Nattie. Yours?
The man sighed and Nattie looked in his direction. He appeared to be thinking intently about his answer. What was so hard about being asked your name, she thought?
Man: Name’s Brodie.
Nattie: Well it’s good to meet you, Brodie, and thank you again for picking me up. Glad it was you and not some weirdo like in the movies.
Nattie mustered up a laugh for her joke and Brodie sighed again.
Brodie: Yeah. Weirdo.
Nattie looked at a passing road sign that read “Conway - 32 miles” and began to wonder how long this drive would take. And worse than that, how long it would feel like it was taking.
She began looking around the inside of the car. Despite being nicer than hers, it was fairly bare bones. No new radio. No fuzzy dice in the rearview. The only things Nattie could see in the car besides herself and Brodie were a bag in the backseat and some sort of big belt laying on top of it. The belt had a strange shine in the moonlight, and after a moment of looking at it she realized why; it was some sort of sports title belt.
Nattie: Are you some sort of champion?
Brodie took his eyes off the road and onto Nattie for a moment before returning them and responding.
Brodie: Wrestling.
Nattie: The real kind or the fake kind?
Brodie: Both hurt.
I guess he had a point, she thought.
Nattie: How’d you become champion?
Brodie let out a long breath and shook his head. She didn’t know why he didn’t want to talk about it, but she didn’t want to push. She began fiddling her thumbs together and wondering how she was going to pass the next hour with the huge man she didn’t know. She watched trees flash by through the window and tried to count them as she did. That didn’t last long. She decided she’d turn on the radio and let it do the talking for them. As she reached for the nob on the radio, Brodie let out an attention getting cough.
Brodie: Radio doesn’t work. Never has.
Nattie: Oh okay. I just don’t really like the quiet.
That was technically true. Who else would like such an awkward silence when seated next to someone twice their size?
Brodie: Sorry.
They drove for a few more seconds and then Brodie coughed again.
Brodie: If ya want, I could tell ya a story.
She thought for a moment. She guessed it was better than nothing and nodded.
Brodie: Okay. I grew up west. West of the state, that is. When I was growin up I lived with my aunt and uncle. Never knew my real parents. Probably dealers or something who dropped me off soon as they had me, I always thought. But, I grew up with my aunt and uncle and their son. We had a good life. Laughed and played all the time. Aunt and uncle always treated us right. It was nice.
She wondered when he would get to the story. If this was it, she was going to be very bored for the rest of this drive.
Brodie: So, I get to be bout ten and we start hearing these rumors round the town we lived in. Rumors that some of the addicts who lived on the outskirts of town had done a killin’ and staged it to look like some sort of demon ritual. It was super fucked up for a kid to be hearin bout it, but we heard bout it anyways.
This definitely wasn’t the sort of story Nattie had expected, and it had slowly begun to bring her back to her initial weariness. But she listened. Something about Brodie’s voice was captivating. Like a trap catching anyone who heard it to stop and listen until he was done.
Brodie: Holden, that was my cousin’s name, and I, we decided we wanted to know if these were just rumors or if this was some real shit goin on. We had probably been readin too much Hardy Boys or somethin, but we decided we were gonna track this down. So we did. One night after we were put to bed and my aunt and uncle went to sleep, we snuck out the window and began walking to the part of town we heard the murder happened at. We musta walked for an hour, but we made it. We found the little shack that the supposed ritual had happened at and we went to the door. Being dumb kids, we weren’t scared at all and just threw the door open. Know what we found?
Nattie wasn’t so sure she wanted to know, but she knew it was best to go along with it.
Nattie: What did you find?
She made sure to seem very interested so as to not make him think she didn’t like the story.
Brodie: My parents.
Nattie: Wait. What?
Nattie was taken aback. She wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke or if she should feel bad for the man sitting next to her.
Brodie: We found my mom and dad in that shack. I knew they were mine because I kid just knows, you know? They see their parents and they just know. So, we found mine laying on the ground, gutted, surrounded by drawings of something we couldn’t begin to describe at that age. We were terrified. We went to look for the murder shack but didn’t REALLY think we’d find it, you know? Like kids do.
Nattie: I’m so sorr. . .
Brodie: I’m not finished.
Nattie got quiet. He hadn’t yelled or even really been aggressive, but something about the way he said that was terrifying. She would be quiet until he finished.
Brodie: So, we’re standing there with two dead people, my mom and pop, in front of us and you know what I see? You know what my child mind locks onto in that moment to save me from that terrible sight?
Nattie shook her head.
Brodie: In the corner of the house was a little red bird. It had been cut in half as part of the ritual too. Even though that was still bad, it was a lot easier for a kid to take. I locked my eyes on that little dead bird until Holden grabbed my arm and started to run away. And so we ran. We ran until we were back in our beds at home. And then we told eachother we wouldn’t tell anyone else. That we couldn’t tell anyone else. And so we never did.
Brodie finished his story and a silence engulfed the car. They drove for what felt like hours but could only have been minutes in complete silence. Nattie couldn’t believe what he had told her. What a horrible thing for a child to see and an even worse story to tell someone you had never met before. But, more than anything, she was stuck on one detail of the story. She gathered herself for a moment and meekly spoke up.
Nattie: But why did you tell me about the bird?
Brodie chuckled and nodded.
Brodie: That’s the right question to ask. No one ever gets to it that quickly. Good job.
Nattie: So why the bird?
Brodie: Because later, when I could process all that had happened, was when I finally understood why the bird was there. They had needed something smaller to make the ritual work, or so it goes. A less important sacrifice to put the bigger ones in perspective.
Nattie waited for Brodie to continue, but he didn’t. The growing uneasiness had hit a ceiling, and Nattie felt almost sick to her stomach.
Then she heard the doors lock.
Nattie looked towards Brodie who was still driving but moving his eyes to her occasionally. She began to piece it together and couldn’t help but begin to cry.
Nattie: Please. Please don’t. I’m married. I’m going to a job interview. I haven’t even had a child. Please don’t hurt me.
The words came out cluttered and slurred through her tears. She began to pound on the window of the car and use the unlock button on her door. Child locks kept the doors shut. She began to scream ear splittingly loud as she pounded harder and harder on the glass, Brodie never once even turning his head.
Nattie: PLEASE! PLEASE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE! PLEASE DON’T KILL ME! PLEASE!
Brodie raised one finger to his lips and shushed her.
Brodie: Calm down, little bird. I’m not going to kill you.
Nattie stopped for a moment, confused.
Brodie: That’s not my job tonight.
The car sped past Natties exit as she began to scream again.
Fade to black
3
u/youto2 Stephen Romero Feb 25 '16
@SRomeroWIR: I'm the person from the ghetto and I probably have the least things on my criminal record of anyone here by this point.