Secluded Vacation

“We’re legit gonna get killed. I am gonna die out here.” Jessie proclaimed, melodramatically miffed.

Gordon could only roll his eyes, following behind Jessie with their bags to ensure he made it through the door this time.

“This is straight-up irresponsible. We’ve just sauntered into some damn horror movie. This is how it starts. Straight up, death was written in the damn sky!” Jessie huffed, his eyes bugging out his head, his signature vein pulsing thickly down his strained forehead.

“What the hell are ya goin’ on about? You’re not gonna die. And that was just a skywriting advertisement. I’m pretty sure it was for that water park.”

“God damn cult advertisements. Who does that? Serial murders. That’s who. We need to leave. I’m tellin’ ya –“

“Relax.” Gordon’s patience and arm strength running thin, immediately regretted his tone with a sigh: as he stomps the snow from his boots, and entered behind Jessie with their bags – who has stopped dead in his tracks to look Gordon wholly in the face. 

“Relax? Ya tellin’ me to RE-LAX?! We’re in the middle of nowhere! In some damn shack with no electricity, no form of communication to an outside world. And you gonna sit there boldface and tell me to relax? I knew I shouldn't have listened to ya bullshit about secluded vacation!”

“How is that bullshit? We’re secluded and on vacation. An’ this is hardly a shack. Ya got a fireplace, stove, we got a couch, beds…table. I don’t see the murder. It might be in the bathroom with the clawfoot tub.”

“You’ve gone mad. Those are actual clawed feet! Those are goddamn bear hooves on a wooden bin in there!”

“I don’t think bears have ‘hooves.’”

“…Ridiculous. I’m tellin’ you, this place is all types of evil.”

“Seriously? Come on, you’re being ridiculous now.” Gordon snapped swiftly before cooling once again to his casual tone, “We needed to get away from all that shit. We can reconnect. Take a hike and swim, catch our food.”

“You sound like a crazy person.”

“Jesus. Fine. I’m going to go cut some wood for the fire.”

“You are legitimately terrifying me.”

“Well, there’s liquor in the cabinets over there, books in the corner –“

Jessie cut him off, “And the only other living thing around here is already cut up and sprawled across the walls, holding up tables and shit.”

“Rustic decoration,” Gordon smirked, tossing their bags at Jessie’s feet.

 “…What is wrong with you?” Jessie’s face stretched, morphing from slight intrigue to bring forth the backsplash of real horror, as Gordon pulled an ax from behind the door to weld it over his shoulder and walked out into the vast whiteness, closing the door with a crunching clunk!

Jessie stumbled back to catch himself on the musty bear skin couch for a moment of dramatized reflection, only to be disgusted by the instant itchy feel of the crudely upholstered seating and the sight of the matching rug. Jessie turned away with an audible shriek after being met with the angered, lifeless cross-eyed stare of the bear’s head: hung in the darkened corner.

The bear's faux eyes seemed to shine red and glare at Jessie, taking hold of him. The silence draws out as Jessie’s face is locked in an air of abhorrent disgust, disguising the fear that made him feel like a child again: waiting for permission to move and be let go. Jessie’s heart stops when the bear's head turns and winks at him. Frozen and thankful, his bladder appeared nonexistent at this moment, bringing Jessie back to awareness and straight for the liquor cabinet.

---

Gordon returned sometime later with a pleasing look. There was a quiet accomplished serenity playing across his face: twitching the edges of his upturned lips and gave a menacing twinkle to his dark emerald eyes. As he dragged in a skinned haunch of meat dripping with fresh blood - that ran in streams down the smeared exposed muscles - staining the cracked wooden floors with a brighten pathway of carnage to the recovered slabs propped up on cinderblocks: acting as their dining table.

Jessie sat perched like a gargoyle atop Gordon’s suitcase - used to buffer against the gnat attracting fur – wrapped in a sheer shaw and cradling a mason jar filled to the brim with something that gave off the familiar stench of gasoline. His mouth dropped open, and a thin steady drip of liquor slobbered from his mouth at the sight of Gordon.

“Sorry, I took so long.” Gordon puffed with exertion as he lobbed and heaved the meat up and down on the table with a rattling thump and grotesque squishing splash, “I went to get wood and saw this fella here.”

“What in all that is holy is that?! Jesus Gordon!”

 “It's dinner. Lucky enough in this cold.”

“Did you get wood? Are we just gnawing at raw meat now?”

“I cut the wood then saw it.”

“I have no words.” Jessie gawked.

 “…Could’ve fooled me,” Gordon remarked under his breath.

“What? This is me, pleasant Gordon. Don’t start. This is beginning to feel a bit much.”

“So, you don’t want to drink the blood?”

“What the-“ Jessie paused, for a long time and stared into Gordon’s inquiring eyes, locked in a mutual question of the seriousness of that statement, before Jessie started once more,

“Are you going to start a fire or what?”

“…Hmm, it is freezing in here.”

“No, shit.”

"Come on, Jessie.”

“You come on, I can’t make sense of any of this. What the hell are we doing here? Why are you all of sudden mountain man, slayin’ fuckin’ beasts in the wild, choppin’ wood. I swear that bear is fucking talking to me. I can’t keep this up, Gordon.”

“Jessie, just calm down. Let me light a fire, and I’ll slice some steaks off.”

“Gordon, I am serious.”

“Jessie, I am super serious.”

“Stop it.”

 “You stop it.”

---

The serenity had not left Gordon’s face as he gnawed and gashed his teeth into the stringy meat, looking up momentarily in a sort of glee at Jessie’s first trepid bite and forty-five-minute chew.

 “It's not bad, right.”

Jessie massaged his jaw, “It’s still talking to me…I don’t even know what sound this meat made.”

“Sounded a bit like…’ HELP! ARGH!’” Gordon mused, startling Jessie with his sudden shriek and shout.

“What the hell?!” Jessie hollered, sputtering out the chewy chunk of meat.

“Ha! Awe, relax. An animal’s an animal, right? Ha! You should see your face.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

Gordon swallowed hard with a casual shrug and smirk as he tore off another piece, holding the petrified gaze of Jessie with a light in his eyes.

“…Gordon…I’m scared.” Jessie’s voice was suddenly losing the cultivated shrill and anxious tones as his face dropped into a genuine look of childish pain and fear.

Something flickered behind Gordon’s eyes. A warmth entered into them as Gordon slowly straightened his back, his shoulders visibly soothed, relieving the multitude of stresses that weighed them down. The look in Jessie’s eyes brought forth a flood of memories that took Gordon back to a simpler time.

“You look like a child.”

“What? Please Gordon…I want to go home. Let’s just drive back.”

 “Drive? We don’t have a car here.”

 “Come on, Gordon. Please stop this. We drove here.”

 “Jessie, we didn’t drive anywhere. I drugged us at home, and they brought us here.”

 “W-What? Who’s THEY?!” Jessie’s anxiety was suddenly skyrocketing, “Fuckin’ hell, Gordon! This-This is not funny! We drove here! You saw the skywriting!”

“Program advertisement,” Gordon replied bluntly, returning to his meat.

“What are you saying? …Gordon?” Jessie whispered as Gordon maintained direct eye contact while slowly thrashing into his meat.

“…Gordon?! Why are you doing this?”

“You really left me no choice Jessiford.” Gordon articulated between chews.

“No choice? I-I-I don’t know what’s going on, Gordon…p-please stop this.”

 “Can’t do that. We’ve been donated.”

 “What? No…no, no no no…you didn’t. NO!” Jessie hollers, pushing back and jumping up violently from the table.

“You were wrong, you know. She was worth more than us both combined. They were the only ones who paid enough.”

“I-I don’t understand. This-this isn’t real.”

“Nothing is real. You wanna know the funny part?”

 “None of this is funny, Gordon! Please stop it…please just take me home.”

 “The funny part is: they have options, you know. And I chose this for us. Because this is exactly what we deserve.”

 “Jesus, Christ Gordon! What are you talking about?! You’re not making any sense! That damn bear is screaming in my ears! AHHHGAHHHH! GORDON, STOP THIS, PLEASE!”

 “You left me no choice. You spent all our money. I stole everything I could. She was just too sick. And you were so willing to let her die. She was your mother too. But you said we’re worth two of her. You said she would prefer to be dead than us be destitute. You took that money I stole to save her. You put it toward a life insurance policy…and that car. You let them…use her.” Gordon’s voice had gone frigid and monotoned, drawing out every word.

  Jessie could do nothing but gape in absolute dread, unable to comprehend the meanings, incapable of silencing the vicious otherworldly growls and shrieks. Jessie turns to run out the door, as Gordon suddenly brought his fists down upon the ragged table, splintering the planks inward, while the meat tumbled to the center and across the floor. Jessie flees out the door, clutching at his shaw, as the brisk, frigid winter – and the following stomps of Gordon, dragging the ax - rushed into Jessie’s bones.

There was nothing but whiteness.

A crisp undisturbed forestry layered in an infinite cycle of snow—their hovel of a cabin an imperceptible splotch; an infinitesimal dent in a canvas devoid of color. Even Jessie and Gordon had gone pale.

 “I-I w-want want…I-I want t-to go, I want to go h-home now, Ga-G-Gordon.” Jessie stuttered through sobs.

  “Okay, Jessiford,” Gordon replied with a deep gratifying breath as he swung down upon Jessie’s neck. Jessie's blood splattering black: painting the snowy canvas with splotched veins of life.

 Gordon gazes down fondly at his baby brother’s flowing streams, sputtering from his gaping neck like a morbid fountain in the center of a glossy lobby, just like the hospital’s halls. Gordon laid the hatchet down next to Jessie, gingerly positioning it so that the blade faced upwards. Gordon looks at his brother as he jumped and threw himself down with a SNAP!

---

“We’re legit gonna get killed. I am gonna die out here.” Jessie miffed dramatically.

 Gordon could only roll his eyes, following behind Jessie with their bags to ensure he made it through the door this time. As they entered their eternal winter cabin, secluded and cut-off from all.