Consciousness drifted to her, her sight blurry for a few moments. A room, musty smelling and lit by a crane lamp greeted her, nastily trying to spin. Shaking her head, she discovered she was bound to a wooden chair. The woman jerked this way and that, but other than scooting the whole chair a bit made no headway. Memories came flooding back, of how she got here. Promptly she let out a wail, overwhelmed with the vision in her head of her friend dying in front of her. The woman heard stirring in the next room, then footsteps.

"Well, well, look who's awake!," came a bubbly cheerful voice. The demoness in cutoffs and mane of blonde hair appeared in the sparse room, giggling. "Hi there sweetie!"

"AAAAAAaaaagghhh!!," greeted her.

"Well that was rude," the newcomer observed, cocking her blonde-curled head at the other woman. She stepped forward and grabbed a handful of reddish hair, then yanked. "Cool it, sissy!," she shrieked, obtaining wide-eyed silence. "That's better. Wouldya like to play a game?"

Before the prisoner could reply, more footsteps announced another entering the room. Tall, lanky and sinuous, he reminded her of a pale snake, cool and poisonous. It was him! He murdered Becca! Screaming ensued.

"Shut her up, will ya?," he told the girl. She nodded and twisted her fist in the captive's hair, eliciting a squeal and abrupt end. "Now you be quiet." The man knelt beside her and looked in her face as if searching for something. She was supremely terrified after seeing him kill her friend Becca, but sat transfixed. "This one's been well-fed," he chuckled, causing the blonde to giggle like a child. He poked her belly then an ample breast, saying "Ok young heifer, you listen up. Behave yerself and make no noise, and I won't gut ya and skin ya like the livestock you are. Understand?"

She nodded, afraid to speak. The strange man's rugged face was still close to her own, looking at her. He was unbelievably, deathly pale with thin silvery hair that hung down his back, framing high cheekbones and faded blue eyes. "Baby, go get Mother and tell her the plump lil princess is awake. She wanted to have a good look at her." Baby patted the prisoner's head and strutted off.

"Aww Otis, she's just the cyutest lil thang!," Mother Firefly was purring. "It's bout time you be gettin yerself a girl. Well you know me an Grampa Hugo ain't gonna be around forever."

"Don't start with that pitter patter of little feet again!," growled Otis, pacing the room like a wounded cat.

"Well it's trew! We need a new generation soon. Baby here ain't even married, but she's young yet. You ain't gettin any younger, Otis."

"Just drop it!," he scratched his stomach, then added "We may find a use for her," then he grinned.

snip, snip, snip The woman became aware of scissors cutting something, close to her head. "Wha-," she began, when she was told by the pretty blonde to be still. "You have such pretty hair," Baby crooned. "Purty purty haaayer," snip, snip

"Please..," began the voluptuous redhead. "Please, just let me loose."

"Ssssh," replied Baby, coming away with a handful of wavy reddish hair. "There we go. I did it from the back, so's you can't tell. Mama don' want me to mess up your looks fer some reason."

"What's going on? What do you want with me?," asked the other female, trying not to burst into tears. She was duly slapped, rocking her back in the wooden chair.

"I can still hurt you, missy!," Baby declared, then just as quickly the ire passed, and she giggled. "Oh, we're gonna have so much fuuuuun, you an me." Round light brown eyes filled with dread, her lip quivering.

Chained this time to an old radiator in the same room, Baby was tugging the captive's outer shirt off, holding it up to herself. It was a gaudy flower print in typical bad 70's colors--orange and green. "Boy you are a big un," Baby observed, tossing the shirt aside. Throwing a long shapely leg over the girl's tied-together legs, she sank down on her thighs. "I bet I have something better in the closet for you. You can be mah very own living Barbie doll! Hehehe!" She jumped up and undid the bindings around her legs. "Don't you run away now," Baby cautioned, allowing her to get up. "Otis!," the demented blonde called. "Come in here an' help me!"

After a few moments the man appeared, and the prisoner began to panic. "No! No, not him!" As soon as she was freed from the radiator she made a run for the doorway, but she was caught by a lean arm like a steel bar. She staggered back, then leaped forward again, attempting to bulldog her way past him. He socked her in the jaw, then planted a fist in her gut, doubling her over. Baby, cackling, grabbed her arms and pulled her upright. The woman was much bigger than her and frantically swung Baby around, trying to dislodge her.

Otis grabbed a wrist from Baby's keeping and yanked her arm out, pulling out a huge knife from his back pocket. In a flash half of the fourth finger on her right hand was severed, the bit of finger rolling across the floor a couple feet. She let out an agonized howl and slumped between them. "Man, that one's got spunk!," Otis said jokingly in his gravelly voice. He slung her substantial body across his shoulders, her wounded hand dripping blood on his tight, already-stained bell bottom jeans. Baby clapped her hands happily. Play time!!

She was taking pictures of the Tree when suddenly they were upon them: a dark-haired behemoth and a platinum-haired slender man wielding crowbars and mallets. Rick went down, his skull crushed, glasses clattering to the ground. Oh God, she thought. The love of her life's blood soaked into the ground around the tree where Dr. Satan had been hung, so the old stories went. Huge arms were around her, she was whirled around and something hit her head. Becca was screaming.

"What's your name?," asked a male voice. She moaned, opening her eyes. For some reason her right hand throbbed. She tried moving and discovered she was in a different room, perhaps the basement, arms and legs tied to a rickety bed. "What's yer name, heifer?," he repeated, slapping her face, but not too hard.

"Stacy," she managed to say. "Stacy Robins." She felt weight on the bed. It was dim but she could make out the form of the wraithlike Otis smiling at her. "Thanks for the trophy," he said, indicating the finger hanging around his neck as a charm. Her finger. "Now has come the time for your education," he intoned, reminding her of a Baptist preacher. She didn't scream this time, but she sobbed, wondering what was to happen to her.

He began by railing at her about gods and men, Machiavelli and Utopia. Because of the pain and infection she caught little of it over the next few days but she clung to life, if only to spite the Firefly family. The overblown matriarch visited her once and made her drink some nasty-tasting concoction. Mother Firefly, that's what the others called her. Some old man came and shouted something at her, and left laughing riotously. Her thoughts drifted and her dreams were of blood and carnage.

"Come on, girly," someone was pulling her upright and pushing her along. "Time to make yerself useful." Stacy looked up at the dark-haired moving mountain, cringing. She was put to work scrubbing floors and washing dishes, the huge man keeping a hawk eye on her the whole time. All the time she kept wondering, why were her friends murdered, and she left alive to labor? Who were these maniacs?

Stacy was back in the basement before she was aware of the fact her own clothes had been taken from her. She was now wearing a tank top, a cutoff denim skirt and dingy blue Converse all-star shoes with some indentifiable splotches on them. She refused to think about what it was. The young woman heard music drifting down from above and stifled a forlorn wail. Oh God, she said to herself, what am I gonna do? She tugged at her bonds, searching for some kind of weakness. Stacy's ears picked up a body shuffling down the stairs to her room, when her eyes beheld an impossibly tall and rail-thin shape entering the chamber. It was wearing a striped sweater and a mask that appeared stitched-together out of skin.

She started to scream then figured her overtaxed voice wouldn't take it, so bit her lip instead. On a tray the man (she assumed) bore a bowl with something steaming in it. Mumbling something incoherent, he set it down at her feet and backed slowly away. "W-wait," she croaked. "Don't go! Please turn me loose!," but the strange deformed figure was gone. "Dammit," she pouted. Stacy knelt to examine what she'd been brought and found a bowl of thick soup and a wooden spoon. Brain disgusted, it was overridden by her stomach rumbling angrily and she dove in. She even ate the chunks of meat. Sorry if that was you, Rick but I'm STARVING, she told herself. How many days has it been since she'd eaten? It was only after she licked the veggie and unknown meat mixture from the bottom of the bowl that she took notice of the wood spoon.

Stacy broke off the bowl of the spoon and began filing the broken end to a point on the metal clasp on the wall that her chains were attached to. Someone else was approaching before long, and she hurriedly stuffed the spoon handle in a skirt pocket.

It was the albino horror again.

"Helloooo, Stacy," he drawled, feeling jolly. This time he was wearing only the jeans and a ridiculous cowboy hat. Otis approached with a reptilian grace and grinned that awful grin at her again. "Ain't we gonna say hi, bitch?"

"Hello, Otis," she squeaked, trembling.

The white-haired devil backed her against the wall, finally came to a stop and looked her up and down. The sheer maleness of his prescence nearly knocked her down but she stared right back at him. "What's so special bout you?," he asked of no one in particular. "Mother Firefly is under the impression you're not like the rest of the herd." He licked her jaw and Stacy flinched with disgust. Then she felt his hands on her and she reached for the spoon handle. Before his hand reached anything of male interest she jabbed the pointed piece of wood in his neck.

Otis stepped back, pulling the implement out. Stacy had got him in the side of the neck where it meets the shoulder, and it was leaking blood as he threw the spoon handle down. "Well, well," he said, not missing a beat. Stacy merely returned his gaze in abject terror, flattening herself against the wall. "You gonna hurt me with that toothpick? Hahahaha! Yer dumber 'n I thought." He wrapped long fingers around her throat, brought her face close to his. It wasn't hard since she wasn't much shorter than him. "Maybe you'd like ta meet that old buzzard, Dr. Satan. That's what ye came here for, huh? Snoopity snoopin around with yer college friends?" Blood trickled down his arm; he paid it no mind.

"Hey I know," he went on. "Maybe you'd like to see the darkie you came with. She was quite a catch."

"Becca?," she croaked. "I saw you kill her."

Otis grinned. "Come on, princess," he hissed and undid the wall clasp. Jerking her along they made their way upstairs and she didn't resist this time. He pulled her into a large room with shelves filled with jars of dead fetuses, body parts, deformed animals. The highlight was a slab in one corner on which sat what was left of the redhead's friend. She had huge eagle wings attached to her back and feathers covering her head, shoulders and upper arms. Her forearms had been removed and replaced with bird claws. Her smooth brown skin had been preserved, making the deformities even more prominent. "I call this one the Griffen. She was a beaut."

"Becca," Stacy groaned, sinking to her knees. Tears rolled down her round cheeks.

"You sure you haven't seen this girl?," the young man asked, holding the picture up again.

"No I told you, she's never been in this establishment," the big man in clown makeup asserted. "Whut are you, a private investigator? Why don't you mind yer own business? As a matter o' fact, if you don't buy some fried chicken soon yew can kiss mah ass." The conversation in question took place in a roadside gas station/freakshow known as Captain Spaulding's.

The auburn-haired young man replaced the picture back in his coat pocket. "No offense meant, mister. And yes I heard you the first time. It's just that this is one of the few stops on the way to the college." The gentleman's face brightened suddenly. "Wait, what about these people?" He produced a college newspaper with Rick and Becca's picture.

Sighing and rolling his eyes, the short-tempered clown peered at the photo, then looked up at the man. "I did see these two sometime last week. Askin bout the usual Dr. Satan bullshit."

"Really? Do you know where they were goin?," the traveller asked.

"Do I look like a babysitter, son? They kept pokin around here and wantin to take pictures, and to get em off my back I told em how to find the Hangin Tree." He then told the man how to get there.

"Thank you--eh, Captain Spaulding, is it? I appreciate the help," the young man dashed out the door, heading for his car.

"You coulda bought some chicken. Bitch," Captain Spaulding rolled his eyes.

The man looked back briefly once at the billboard which read "Fried chicken and gasoline," before getting in his vehicle. Perhaps he'd find something there of the whereabouts of his sister. It didn't hurt to try.

He started feeling a little uneasy driving down the deserted road, and a bit unsure if he was in the right place. He kept on going, however. There must be someone he could ask, he kept thinking. Minutes later he came upon several police cars, sirens blaring. "Shit," he muttered, coming to a halt.

"Bit outta your way, Sonny?," the cop inquired, obviously impatient for him to be on his way. "This road is closed but the main road is still open. Ah suggest you go that route."

Frowning the young man turned the car around and headed back in the other direction. It was far from over, however. He intended to find out what happened to Stacy.

"What the hell! The sign reads 'fried chicken,' not donuts ye flat-footed sunsabitches!," huffed the humongous clown, eyes taking in the proliferation of police officers in his place of business. The dirty t- shirt he wore read "Shut up, Bitch!" and it matched him.

"We're just asking for a bit of information," the sheriff cooly replied.

"I haven't seen that girl, I done told you!" He was fingering the pistol he had under the counter, wondering if he should use it. He hated cops. "Come on, let's beat it," one of the officers said, irritated. "Dumbass doesn't know anything."

"We've wasted quite a bit of time," the tall sheriff acceded. "I'll send another deputy back out here if nothing else turns up. Later, Spaulding," he turned crisply on his heel, the other cops following him.

"Fuck you," Spaulding answered back.

"Wh-where's Rick? What did you do with him?," Stacy wondered.

"He's in a better place," was the mock-respectful comeback.

"Let me see him!," the woman cried. She recieved a jolting backhand, rattling her teeth in her head. He squeezed her maimed hand, taking her breath away and starting it bleeding again. She was dragged back downstairs kicking and trailing blood and chained to the wall again. She sat despondantly in the dust on the floor.

After a while, time seemed to blend and fold back in on itself. Days went by and turned into weeks. She realized she was in a vast old farmhouse, and she was sometimes fed after doing work around the house, other times 'educated' by Otis, scorned by the hulking darkhaired Rufus Jr. and forced to give piggyback rides for Baby. She was even stripped and photographed with a naked, giggling Baby by Otis, but she was past the point of caring by that time.

When she was more lucid and herself, Stacy came to know the demonic family. Mother Firefly was a hick nympho of the worst sort, dressing most times in little more than lingerie and feather boas but with some plan for Stacy, from the way she cooed and fussed over her. RJ (Rufus Jr), Tiny and Baby were all Mother's children as far as she could tell. Baby was the blonde bombshell and her childish laugh could be heard all over the house. Tiny was the thin giant with the leather mask. Apparantly he'd had some sort of childhood accident.

Grampa Hugo was quite a character, usually regaling her with old stories or dirty jokes. He was pretty nice to her, too...or it could be all in her head. She just wasn't sure anymore.

Rick's unkempt blond hair fell in his eyes as he looked over the article, making him look more cute. It took little effort to convince him of searching for Dr. Satan. Both journalism majors, they thought this would boost their careers along. And she hoped she could prove to herself she was reporter material. She remembered the first time she kissed him. She remembered the talk they had about getting married after college.

"Yes I know you're an artist!," Stacy snapped. "You wanna know about being misunderstood?!," then she launched into a tirade about her own alienation and struggle with peers she shared little interest or abilities with. Then she made up a bunch of stuff drawing on everything from Nietsche to social Darwinism, ending with a "You fuckin sick freak!!" As the silence dropped, she realized what she'd done. She was strapped to the chair looking up at Otis. He was gazing back at her with the strangest expression. Then he grinned. Undoing the straps binding her to the chair, he tied her hands together and manhandled her to the bed.

Crawling up her body and through her arms he lay atop her, her hands being bound forcing her to hold him close. Otis's maleness hit Stacy with the force of a Mack truck, and even being repulsed she found herself attracted as well. And the wheels in her mind were turning. As he pressed against she whispered "Untie me." He looked down at her.

"Now why would I do that?," he questioned.

"Because it'll be better," she replied coyly. He disentangled himself from her, got up and and locked the door. Then he pulled out a pocket knife and returned to the bed. Stacy merely watched him, her face still. He cut the ropes from around her wrists then got to work yanking her skirt down. She put her arms around him of her own volition, and when her leaned down to kiss her she parted her lips.

Upstairs, as moans drifted up through the floorboards, Mother Firefly smiled as she knitted, rocking in her rocking chair. Perhaps there will be children in the house again.

Both had dozed off for a bit when knocking at the door had them both jerking upright in the bed. "Otis, what you doin in there?," came Baby's plaintive voice. The doorknob twisted and she knocked some more. "You didn't go an' kill her, did you? Here y'all had me thinkin there was gonna be another girl in the family. Otis? You doodyhead!" When Stacy heard that it finally fell into place why she'd been allowed to live; the clan must have another generation to continue on. Otis and her stared at one another for a moment, then he told her to get dressed. She let him chain her to the wall and watched as he pulled on his bellbottom jeans, watching the wiry muscles under his translucent skin. He unlocked the door and Baby come bouncing in, a big sponge in her hand. Her face brightened when she spotted Stacy. "Bath time!," she burbled.

The wraith known as Otis made his way to one of the upstairs rooms to find a shirt and found Grampa Hugo watching tv and eating a bowl of Cheerios. "I done told you once before, boy," said the old man between bites. "Put me behind the wheel and I'll show you drivin'."

Otis smirked and replied, "Shut up you stupid old fuck. You ain't got it up since the Baby Jesus took his first steps." Hugo grunted and continued eating. " Now boys," cajoled Mother Firefly as she swept into the room. "You need ta get along with each other. I think it'll be wonderful to have a little youngun in the house. Why, it'd be a ray of sunshine on this family."

Otis put on a semi-clean western shirt and shook his head. Mother Firefly had a one-track mind sometimes.