Chapter Text
Nockfell, 1992
The new house is small. If it were in better condition, and not in the middle of the quasi-suburbia that made up all of Nockfell County, it might have been considered a 'quaint cottage'. But it wasn't. The blue paint was peeling, crackling lines of gray through the robin's egg color, and the once-white posts that held the awning for the porch had long since stained from years of exposure to the elements. The whole place looked worn and not in the well-loved, affectionate way either.
"Hey! If you're not going to help, then move out of the way!"
Rick's voice, by your left ear. Without saying a word (you were long since used to this routine), you dance out of his way and let your step father lumber by. The porch creaks under his weight as he hauls himself up the two front steps, the cardboard box hastily labeled KITCHEN in silver sharpie buckling uneasily in his arms. There's a sweat stain already seeping down the back of his gray sweatshirt despite the oncoming Fall chill.
Your new home. Your new life. New step-dad, new school, and a new you.
...
Yeah, no, definitely not a new you.
You have absolutely no intention of changing, despite what your mother might be thinking. A new husband that you didn't like, a new house you didn't want--these things were not in your plan, especially not at the wonderful sweet-sixteen you were on the verge of hitting. You'd hoped that, maybe, she'd put off the move from sunny Florida til after your birthday, but your mother always had your "best interests" at heart, and she wanted you to have a chance to "make friends" before your birthday rolled in at your new school.
Right. Cause nothing says "Be my bestie!" like exchanging trauma stories with other teenagers.
As you ruminate over the choices that led you here--your mother's choices--said woman steps out of the U-HAUL truck and rests a work-creased hand across your shoulder. "Don't take it personally," She says, as if you're upset by Rick's brusque behavior. You really, really aren't. "He's just stressed. Moving's never easy, you know? He just wants to get moved in before he starts his job at the factory next week."
You shrug and shove your hands into your hoodie pockets. Your fingers bump over the edges of your old CD player, finding comfort in the curve of the wires and the indented play button, worn down from over-use. You had to stop playing the Megadeth CD you owned blaring once you pulled up into the yard of your new house. "It's fine, Mom. I really don't care."
She smiles, lips pulling back over her teeth. Your mother reminds you of a dog, sometimes. She bares her teeth to show aggression, as a threat. The only sign that she's not doing it this time is that instead of her eyes being blown wide, promising punishment for a poorly-spoken word, they're wrinkled in the corners to show she's pleased with your indifference.
She bends over and kisses your forehead over your bangs. It tickles, and you smell the dredges of her Dior perfume, flowers and linen mixed with the burger grease from the takeout you'd all shared for lunch. "My little adult," She says. "You know, it's still early," She glances down at her watch, turning her wrist upwards as she returns to her full height. You follow her stare and read the crystal face of the clock. 2:10.
"I think the high school is just letting out. You might be able to run into a few new kids if you head out," She chirps. Dread pools in the bottom of your gut. You keep your face carefully schooled into your practiced mask of indifference, even as your fingers pick up the pace of rapidly tapping against your CD player. Keep time, tap-tap-tap, one-two-one-two... Your therapist had reccomended rhythms and stimulation methods to keep your anxiety from spiking in stressful situations.
Your mother's bright eyes take you in, gleaming hazel under sharp eyeliner and perfectly-applied mascara. Perfectly made up, a beauty queen 'til the end. "Why don't you go ahead and try to learn the town? I'll have Rickie set up your bed. We'll leave the boxes untouched so you can set up your room just how you like," She rests her hands on her hips.
It feels like a Mexican stand off. Both options are, honestly, horrible. You take a minute to chew it over, trailing the wires from your pocket up to your neck, wrapping your cold fingers around the plastic headphones draped over the back of your hood.
Option One: stay home. Be subjected to Rick getting angry, popping open beers as he works, and him and mom yelling at each other and then condescendingly telling you they were just talking loudly while you desperately tried to shut them out and fix everything you owned in your new room in the crackling, peeling house.
Option two: leave. Wander around the new town, possibly get lost, or worse; talk to people. You might run into strangers, who might want to talk, might want to get to know you and get in your space. What if they wanted to shake hands and touch you? What could possibly be more terrifying than the existential crisis-inducing event of being KNOWN?
After more careful consideration you find yourself grabbing your headset and shoving them unceremoniously over your ears. At least with option two, you run the chance of not running into people, and you can blast Megadeth into your ears until you ran the threat of going deaf or giving yourself tinnitus.
"Cool," You say to your mother. She's practically beaming at your compliance. It is a rare feat these days to agree to anything she says. "Got a time you want me to be back by?"
"Fluerette!" Rick's voice booms from the open front door. "Where do you want your Pampered Chef set?!"
"Hang on!" Your mother screams back over your head. You're very glad you wore your headset. She looks back down at you and grabs your cold cheeks, smothering you in an abundance of kisses that are wholly unnecessary and unwanted. "Be back by sundown," She says when you finally wrench away and get your personal space back.
A loud crash comes from your house and the happy face is gone. The dog is back. Your mother shoves past you and screams something in her native French at your step-dad. You don't try to translate it and beeline for the sidewalk down the neighborhood road, hurriedly pressing play on your CD.
The last strains of "Tu m'emmerdes avec ton bruit!" are drowned out by the hard guitar opening to Psychotron starting up in your ears. You're thankful for it as your feet lead you down the concrete, adrenaline kicking in just as Dave Mustaine's voice crackles to life; at least you can put some distance in between yourself and the house and desperately pretend the fight that inevitably starts isn't going to boil over by the time you get home.
Nockfell is rural. You'd been able to see that when Rick had driven into town. A small suburb, rolling fields with vague mountain lines in the distance; you'd passed only a single church on the way in. There had been five within twenty miles back in your old hometown. It won't be hard to memorize your street name and it, hopefully, won't be difficult to find your way back home.
The cold air stings your nose and chills your lungs. It forces your desperate sprint down to a jog, then to hobbling speed-walk before you finally come to an awkward stand-still in the middle of the sidewalk. You rest a hand over your chest and try to regulate your breathing. It's not quite cold enough to see your breath yet, but the creeping chill can certainly be felt in the numbness starting to grow across your flushed cheeks.
"I'm out of shape," You mutter. Well, it's not like you were looking to join the Nockfell High Track Team any time soon.
Once your chest stops it's ugly spasming around every attempted breath, you manage to right yourself back into something vaguely human-shaped rather than the huddled over mess of black hoodie and gray jeans you'd been sporting. You haven't put too much distance between yourself and the house--you can still see the shingled roof and the curve of the awning--but it's enough to calm the beginnings of the anxiety attack that had been trying to form.
You scuff the toe of your left sneaker against the ground and take an overly-exaggerated spin around, arms outstretched. "Wow, Mom!" You say to no-one. "I love Nockfell! It's cold as fuck and I'm totally making friends with," You stop, count to four, and drop your arms. "Absolutely no one."
A black sedan speeds by on the road to your left, scattering brittle leaves and little else. You didn't even see a person behind the wheel; just the briefest reflection of yourself, a lanky teen statistic in the throes of a tantrum.
It did, however, reflect something else; the silvery, glinting archway of a graveyard entrance just several feet behind you, carefully hidden and overlapped by a copse of dying, dry trees. Just as you turn your head, bangs catching across your eyes--your CD catches.
It skips over Countdown to Extinction. Once, twice, the scratchy vocals constantly catching and repeating as you stare at the sign to the Neveroak Cemetery and reach into your hoodie pocket.
Killed a few feet from the cages--killed a few fee--killed--kikk-kikkk-kkkkkklll
"Stupid thing." You turn it upside down, slap it with the flat of your palm and turn it off. A chill crawls down your spine and up the vertebrae of your neck. You chalk it up to the weather and certainly not because your CD decided to screw up on the worst possible song it could in front of a cemetery gate.
You pull your headphones down around your neck and cross the sidewalk to where it leads into a well worn, small dirt patch that goes directly to the closed gate of the cemetery. You'd never been the type of kid to really engage in stupid activities like trashing cemeteries in the dead of night. Though you'd heard of the raging parties the juniors and seniors at your old school would throw in the cemeteries, desecrating gravestones and making out in mausoleums, it had never really piqued your interest.
The Neveroak Cemetery doesn't pique your interest either. Not exactly. You just find yourself standing at the gate, fingers wrapped around the brittle, rusted iron, staring through the bars and at the multiple headstones that dot the small hilly plot. You can only really see newer, modern gravestones, but you find it odd that such a small town has such a large, expansive patch of land for their dead.
How many people could die in Nockfell a year?
Before you can ponder the generational difference, there's a skittering of crushed pebbles by your left shoe. You recoil, a brief, irrational fear of a zombie hand grabbing your ankle through your jeans popping up.
It's nothing so grand. Rather, it's a fat, happy cat, meandering its way across the lawn and right towards you. You like cats. You do. You had a cat back when you were a kid. That said, you have a very extensive Stephen King collection, and you've watched Pet Semetary too many times for this shit. "Nice kitty," You say even as you tilt your leg back. "Don't, come on, I'm a weird person who probably kicks cats," You try again as the orange cat lumbers to you.
It blinks, amber eyes glimmering the same color of the leaves beneath your feet, and it gives a happy chirrup before lunging for your shoes. You'd scream, but what comes out is a far more graceful; "Hgorck!" As the cat manages to slam into your shins to wrap its needle teeth into your shoe laces.
Ah. String. Your worst enemy and the cat's prey.
You go ass-over-teakettle, headset and CD player flying over your head in a graceful arch. Ten out of ten, so majestic. You'd be more impressed over the distance if your head didn't just crash flat into the dirt so the cat can mangle your vans beyond compare. It doesn't hurt too bad, and it doesn't feel like you have a concussion, but the world definitely spins and you see stars.
The cat's purring happily, sitting its fat, absurdly fluffy rear-end on your gut, making biscuits with little paws over your hip while it tugs your shoelaces in its mouth. It would be cute, if the damn thing hadn't totally just jumped you.
...
You got jumped by a cat on your first day in Nockfell.
"Hey," You sit up, resting one hand on your aching head and supporting your upper body with your elbow. The cat turns its head to look at you, squinting in a pleased way, laces still firmly latched in its mouth. "Is this you wanting to be my friend?" You tentatively reach out. The cat doesn't swat you. In fact, it purrs pleasantly as you roll its ear in your fingers, orange fur bristling happily between the pads of your thumb and forefinger.
At least it didn't kill you, ala-Stephen King style. You slip your hands beneath the cat's paws, hauling it up and into your arms. Luckily, it doesn't seem to mind. It even releases your shoelaces from its death grip, purring up a storm against your chest. You can't bring yourself to mind the inevitable cat-hair storm you'll surely end up having after this.
You pet its head and scratch under its chin. It looks like a Maine Coone, beautifully groomed and well fed. "You're somebody's pet, huh, lil' guy?" You murmur. It kneads its little gremlin paws in your hoodie and purrs again. You melt a little and rub your cheek against the top of its head, eyes half-closing. You do love animals... "I bet they're looking for you. Where'd you come from?"
The cat had come from the opposite end of the cemetery, so just further ahead from where you were. You hoist the cat up a bit further in your arms and begin to walk again, now with a new mission in mind; to find the owner of your new friend and would-be attacker.
It's only once you've crossed the street in a desperate little speed walk that you see a black collar with a hastily written tag; it looks like it was newly put on and half way to being chewed apart by your fluffy companion, and the name is barely readable in the pencil scratched over a print-out tab.
Gizmo.
"Okay, so you're Gizmo," You say. Gizmo purrs. "Alright, Gizmo, let's find your family. They need to know that they have a dangerous criminal they need to keep imprisoned at all costs."
Gizmo only yowls at you, as if agreeing that they are, indeed, a violent and wanted escapee.
"I'm so glad you agree," You narrow your eyes and use one hand to dangle your headphones in front of Gizmo. Gizmo's eyes light up and they immediately begin to bat at the wires, pink paw-pads pulling the electronic in for a new game. "Because your owner owes me a new Megadeth CD. If it wasn't broken before, it definitely is now."