"You see? These are the moments I wish you wouldn't have shot Marvin in the face. If Griggs was still alive, I could be taking a nap right now!" Alonzo complained from the front seat of a very expensive Prius.

Franklin scoughed. "You told me to shoot him! You literally paid me money for it!"

"Well... I don't know. You could have just taken the money and ran." Alonzo argued.

"And miss the chance to get paid for doing something I love. Yeah, no way." Franklin laughed as she turned back to her phone.

"I think you have a problem." Alonzo shook his head as he rounded another corner on the country road.

"You think" Franklin chuckled. "Wait, look at this meme, it's so you."

"I can't look at your phone, I'm driving."

"It'll take a second, it's just a sentence and a picture." Franklin pushed.

"There are rules to driving, Franklin. You just don't look at a phone. There all laws in place to prevent such distractions. Safety is key."

Franklin huffed. "You're a bitch." She sighed. "I'll just read the stupid meme." She cleared her throat. "When you're a badass inside but a teadybear on the outside, and then like, there's a picture of a teddy bear stuffed with human organs and... I think a unicorn? Which, yeah unicorns are badass, I guess. Just doesn't really fit the theme. Anyway, it would have been funnier if you'd just looked at it."

"I think I got the picture. I've seen enough real human organs that I might be desensitized to gore comedy."

Franklin turned to him. "Gore comedy?"

"Yeah, gore comedy."

"What the hell is gore comedy?" Franklin laughed.

"Well, I guess it's not technically a genre of comedy, but me and the performers used to run a little puppet show after each episode of The Carnival, but instead of puppets we used organs with googily eyes. We called it Spleen and The Lung."

Franklin couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"It wasn't super popular, but I liked it. Oh yeah, there was this one episode where Spleen and Lung played tug o war with some intestines. Basically the intestines rip and Spleen falls backwards and impales himself on a spike. We filled Spleen up with a bag of blood so when he got impaled blood exploded everywhere like some sort of gut bomb." Alonzo chuckled. "Then Lung runs over to check on him but trips on the intestine and falls on top of Spleen killing them both." He laughed harder and then after a minute, he sighed. "Damn... I miss that place."

"What place?"

"My pole. My tunnels. My wall."

"Your wall?"

"Yeah, there was this wall that I used to scream at for hours while completely naked while I sat on a spintery chair that stabbed wood flakes into my testicals. Man, I was so happy down there. I had never felt that right about something. Me and that labyrinth were made for each other."

"What was the thing about the wall?" Franklin said, eyes wide.

"And Zachery took it all away from me. ALL OF IT! Shit, the more I think about all of this, the more I realise how much I've changed." He hit the stearing wheel angrily, but not too rough as he was afraid to damage it. When he noticed his hesitation, it angered him. He slammed on the wheel again, this time a bit harder. This, in turn, caused the car to swerve ever so slightly. He slammed on it again, causing a twinge of pain to strike in the palm of his hand. He felt the shivers that he hadn't felt in so long, exciting him ever so slightly. He looked at Franklin with a smirk. "I miss this. I miss the rage. I miss the pain, ya know? I'm so normal now. I hate what I've become and... I see what you mean. I see it. I just don't know how to get it back."

Franklin rested her hand on his thigh more tender than either of them expected. "We'll find you again, Alonzo. No matter what it takes." She smiled at him and let out a comforting sigh. She looked back to the road and then said, "Turn right. We'er here."

Alonzo did as she commanded, and looked out to see a very long rocky path leading into a deep forested area. The car pulled up the path, the sound of the rocks grinding under the heavy weight of the tires. Some shooting up and hitting the bottom of the car, others pushed into the dirt, never to be seen again. After a minute of talkless travel over the sketchy driveway. The car pulled to a stop in front of a log cabin that Alonzo didn't recognize, but Franklin did.

Franklin giggled with a giddy tone as she hopped out of the car. She took in the view of her sanctuary for a moment, then made her way to the back of the prius. She pressed the handle and the trunk door slowly opened. Inside, a little boy, beaten and bruised looked up at his captors in desperation. Alonzo joined his companion at the trunk of the car. Franklin took his hand and turned to face him. "Are you ready," then paused before saying "Alonzo?"

"I think I am." He nodded.

A moment passed where no one said anything. Alonzo closed his eyes and let out a deep breath. He took out a purple marker from his pocket and drew a line from his left ear, then to his lips, and then onward to his right ear. He carefully capped the marker and returned it to his pocket.

"I know we don't have the full gitup but-"

"I'll be fine, Franklin."

"Good."

Alonzo smiled deviously. "Hello little boy. Would you like to take a ride at the Carnival?"

The boy screamed.

But no one would ever hear him. Never again.

---

Before we continue with the story, I feel like I should show you a moment in the life of someone who you might not have thought about. A person who's impact on the story is small if not completely insignificant, but they should be brought to light in this moment as their perspective has importance.

His name was Jacob Robert. He was a mortician for the state of Oklahoma with little to no experience as he was very new to the career. Originally having a masters degree in Writing, he realised just how difficult it was to get a novel read by a publisher. The idea of making any money in such an over populated career choice was more than laughable. And being the trillionth person to write another love story did not help. Being the next Twilight or Hunger Games seemed impossible. At this point he felt more inclined to give up on his dreams and try a career with more potential. Not that the thought of giving up filled him with much joy, but after ten years of giving it literally all he had, his frustration overwhelmed any sense of hope he had previously manifested. So, back to the drawing board he went, and to the trash went The Stars and The Moon, a failed legacy, never to be read or even thought of. Forever the creative endeavor would sit quietly on his computer hard drive waiting for a day that would never occur. Cursed to sit in an infinite staciss, away from the light of any curious eyes. Ironically, If Jacob had simply waited a year more, he might have actually had that chance at his dreams, but instead he found an easy opening to a job that no one had wanted that paid at a moderately adequate rate.

A Morticians salary was nothing to fawn over, but it made enough to pay the bills, or more accurately it almost did. That along with some help from the now infamous fast food joint, once held in high regard as the biggest food empire ever created, McDonalds, in which he found himself running a cash register on the weekends. After the massacre that was the second of Alonzo's great terrorist attacks on the American tradition, McDonalds found itself on hard times, having to severely cut down on employees, locations and, sadly for Jacob, workable hours. But somehow it had managed to survive such a heinous debacle which nearly killed it like it did it's CEO.

Point is, whether Jocab Robert liked the idea of being a mortician or not, this was the life he was now forced to lead. Once top of his class, now being forced to see sights that would permanently haunt his dreams for the rest of his miserable life. And this sight was no exception.

Lilly had left quite a mess for the poor, only one week in, mortician to let his eyes feast on. After the police had done the observation, and the Doctor had determined the poor woman's passing, it was up to Jacob and his partner for the day, David Case, to deal with the mess.

The worst Jacob had had to deal with so far was an old woman who had been left out in her hot car for three days. And as much as a cooked old woman did make quite a disgusting stench, along with falling off the bone so easily, like a tenderised pot roast was pretty bad, cleaning up a fried rope of intestines filled with a week's worth of feces did seem to compete well. Jacob found that the best way to collect the organ was to wrap it around his arm like a cable, but the leathery jerky that the intestine now was was nearly too brittle to be wrapped as it ripped and popped open easily if it was too strained spilling out a greenish brown ooze onto, thankfully, Jacobs jumpsuit.

As the unfortunate man collected the digestive tract, he wondered exactly what kind of creature could do something like this. Maybe a wolf or some other kind of animal. Not that that would make much sense as there were absolutely no bite marks, and the body had obviously been cut into by a blade. This was a murder, most definantly, but who would do something like that? Who would want to force that much pain onto another person?

Jacob thought for a minute about different situations in his life where he had had a violent reaction. Maybe that time he kicked Derrick Leopard's ass after he got off at his bus stop. Yeah, "kicked his ass..." More like got his ass kicked. Derrick was always a prick like that. Jacob had had moments where he had thought about killing Derrick, as did most of the people who went with them to that highschool, but come on, he'd never actually do it. Of course, when he heard Derrick had gotten killed in that car accident, he didn't exactly feel bad for him. I mean, he wasn't happy about it, per say, but he wasn't too broken up. But this was different. This was hate. Some sort of... revenge maybe? Like maybe some deviant love affair gone wrong. If Sodemy was involved, that might explain the thing with the intestine. Rip out the asshole of the asshole. Made since, but a little much. Definitely ironic. The thing with the sexual organs of the body being the main target definitely seemed to have something to do with fornication. Whether that be mistress to husband, maybe husband to wife, maybe gay? Who knew for sure?! No evidence had been left behind to suggest differently.

One way or another though, Jacob was getting some inspiration from the woman's situation. As gross as it sounded, the idea of such a gruesome murder in the name of love sounded... mysterious. No No No! He thought We are not going down this track again! It didn't work out! It was Hell and you deserve BETTER! Jacob had been through enough rigimoral for a stupid waist of money and time. If he was meant to be a revered author, it would have happened by now. No great plots or inspiration would change that now. He had put in the effort and received his reward. Nothing. And if nothing was what he was going to get, then nothing was also what he was going to put in. He was done.

Although... maybe a little change to The Stars and The Moon wouldn't be so bad. I mean, Candice needed a little kick, even Seth had said that. "She's a bit bland. Not that the book is bad or anything, but I really feel like, I don't know. She's just so... blank." Blank Seth?! Really! You ASSHOLE! You have NO IDEA how long I spent on the stupid BOOK! But... maybe he wasn't as much of an asshole as Jacob had originally thought. To be honest, Jacob had never really been great at writing female characters, mostly because he himself had never been a female, but this? Maybe if she had this dark secret. This need for revenge and bloodlust. Maybe that was exactly what she needed! This was what he was missing. A killer love triangle. Literally! It would give Jane such a better death scene then the one he had written, along with changing the ending to something a little different. Something much more unexpected. Something different. Maybe he'd have to start from scratch, but who cares! What if he'd have something better?! Something good!

"JAKE!" David yelled for the third time.

"Y-yeah!" Jacob called back as he came back to reality.

"You're now just pulling the intestine out. Stop. It's gross."

"Sorry, I got uh... sorry." He found it best not to share his thoughts to his coworker as basing a book off of a real dead person he himself had to clean up might seem a bit disturbing to the untrained eye.

"Alright, I'm gonna grab the stretcher. Can you shove those back in there, or do you just wanna set em next to it." David asked as he walked to the hearse.

"It?"

"Yeah, the body."

"It's a her." Jacob scoughed.

"Not anymore, now it's an it. You lose gender privileges when you no longer are you." David stated obnoxiously.

"You wanna be called an It when you die, David?" Jacob argued.

"I don't think I'll care jake, cause I'll be fuckin' dead." David rebutted.

Jacob couldn't argue with that logic. But in the same thought, he also hoped maybe one day David might share a similar fate to that of Derrick. Well, not really. Well, not not really.

"I'll try to put them back in I think. I know I'd want my organs all accounted for." Jacob said as he kneeled down in front of the corpse. He started to put the intestines back into their place, but as a weird unidentifiable fluid squirted onto Jacobs face he decided, "Actually, maybe I'll just set them to the side.

---

Lilly watched patiently from the back of the bus. She watched as each tree, shrub, building or whatever else the earth had to offer crossed her path as she rode. She imagined some sort of black dog like creature running by the side of the bus, jumping from roofs to car tops to treetops then onto power lines and sometimes just along the side of the road. She imagined the runalong might be some sort of Hellhound waiting for her last breath. Waiting patiently to drag her to outer darkness so she might pay for her sins. She wasn't sure what type of tortures waited for her down there, but after all of the sins she had committed, she was sure it would be something terrible. But she knew whatever it was, it would be by her doing.

She was a bad person. This wasn't a hard concept for Lilly to accept, as she knew from the first moments of her life that she could remember that she would be a bad person. She wasn't similar to other psychopaths. In her childhood, she never tortured or killed animals. She felt animals deserved some since of partnership. Animals killed for food, not for fun. Since Lilly didn't eat her own kills, murdering a rat or a fly seemed more than wrong. So what if a bee landed on your arm? Would you expect a tree to swat at you when you sat among its branches. Of course not! Trees did not attack others for their transgressions. Of all creatures, trees were the most forgiving. Say if you pulled the bark from an old oak somewhere in the woods. The tree would not fight you off. It would not stab or hit. It knew that you didn't mean anything by it. You weren't in any way trying to kill the tree, and the small blemish would easily heal overtime, making any sort of selfdefence a waist of energy. So if a bee landed on you and was to sting you, would you die? No! Well, not in Lilly's case. She wasn't deathly allergic to bees, so a sting would most likely hurt for a bit then go away. Nothing more. Therefore, killing the helpless creature was murder. It was wrong.

This philosophy of doing right by nature didn't last all of Lilly's life, obviously, but to be clear, Lilly hadn't always been a psychopath. Lilly figured the whole endevar started with her brother's suicide. At the age of four, seeing something like that could completely change the particulars of one's personality. If not change it completely. Then when she was raped for the first time, at the age of seven, by her mother's drug dealer, Lilly felt that that might have been the time she started to understand the uselessness of purpose. That's when she started to realise how stupid the tree really was. The tree would have still had that piece of bark if it had swatted at you. The tree would still be whole. The tree was an idiot. Lilly realised that she needed to protect herself. She found that the only person who would be there for her consistently, was her. Her mother made sure she knew that. Especially when she simply left the room when she saw what was happening.

Lilly considered for a bit, after college, if it might have been genetic. She recalled that lost memory at the side of the pool, watching mommy murder thoes people. She wasn't exactly sure why she had done it in the first place. Had thoes people done something to her? Were they deserving? Or did the idea of "deserving" even mean anything.

It was Devon who introduced the meaninglessness. He had been the last person she had truely cared about. And he showed her well, what care got you. That was when she decided that the ideas of care and deserving didn't have meaning. She thought of Jesus in that way sometimes. Someone Peggy was more than willing to introduce Lilly too. Jesus, the son of god, was considered the kindest, greatest man who had ever existed. A man who had only taught about forgiveness and love. Something Lilly didn't understand, though was how he was treated. Even going so far as getting executed for... for what? Nothing. Rome just decided he "deserved" to die. They did to him what Lilly had done hundreds of times. Horrible mutilating torture. Just because he "cared."

When Devon raped her, after she finally thought she had found someone who would actually give a shit about her, what happened? He took advantage of her. Lilly hadn't "deserved" it. But she realised that that didn't matter. She realised the falsehood of fairness. Nothing was fair. What WAS fair was that nothing was fair. Everyone got a chance. That was the only rule. If Lilly had decided to be some sort of hero, like a firefighter or a soldier, 9/11 would have still happened, people would still get raped, sex trafficking wouldn't stop. The world wouldn't change. People would still die at young ages and life would still be terrible. So, Lilly made the decision at that moment. She was done "caring," she was done feeling sorry for herself because she felt she "deserved" better. If the world could so easily throw Jesus Christ to the wayside, then she could throw the world to the wayside.

But Lilly had missed a few steps in the equation. She hadn't realised how wrong she had really been, until Sam.

Now, all she could remember was the words Jesus had cried from the cross. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Lilly had never really considered that part of the scripture before. To be honest, she had never known he had ever said that. But there she was, looking at a bumpersticker of that exact quote staring her right in the face from the ceiling of a city bus.

Now, Lilly didn't know if Jesus had even ever existed. She hoped that he didn't out of fear that she'd have to meet him some day just to see how disappointed he was in her. Just like everyone else. Even Sam.

And Sam wasn't Jesus... but she knew he was better than her.

Lilly wondered what Sam was talking about with Jesus right now. She wondered if he'd be forgiven for what Lilly had made him do. Sam was good. Sam was supposed to have stayed that way, right?

"We'er here, sweety." The busdriver called back to Lilly causing Lilly to look up and realised that they were at the police station.

"Oh." Lilly responded as she stood from her seat. "Um... yeah. Ok." She walked up to the door of the bus and prepared to step off.

"You need anything else before you get off? I think I got a pack of gummy worms somewhere around here.

Lilly turned to say no to his offer, but seeing as these were her last free moments of life, she decided maybe it wouldn't hurt. "Um... Sure, that sounds nice."

The bus driver smiled and pulled up his work bag, sticking his hand into it and digging around for a slightly inconvenient amount of time. He pulled out a crinkled up bag of gummy worms and reached them out to her. "I havn't eatin em or anything but they seem to be a little melted.

"I don't mind." Lilly replied, retrieving the bag. "Thank you for the ride. That was very kind of you."

"Kindness is one of the most powerful things. Can change the world, you know?" He smiled.

Lilly paused for a moment, unsure of the comment. "Can it?"

"You never heard the story of the boy and the starfish?"

"No."

"Well," He cleared his throat. "Basically, this little boy was picking up starfish at a beach, that the waves were throwin' out. This old man walks up to the boy and says, 'you know throwin' thoes guys into the water won't really do anything right? The tide'll just beach even more of em.' So the kid looks up at the man and throws another starfish back. The man's all baffled and says, 'didn't you listen, boy? It makes no difference!' And the boy smiles, throws in another one and says, 'it made a difference for that one.'" The bus driver laughed. "My momma raised me on that story. She told me, "If you can't save them all, kid, atleast save one. Ones enough to make a difference."

Lilly took in the story and stood silent for a moment. She looked back up to the bus driver. "You think Jesus believed that?"

The bus driver chuckled. "I should hope so. Otherwise, none of us are gonna get this place fixed."

Lilly nodded and walked out the bus door after waving goodbye to her new friend. The bus driver waved back and pulled the bus away. Lilly looked toward the police station, she decided it was time to throw a starfish back into the ocean. Even if it was just one. That's what Jesus would do, right? That's what Sam would do. Maybe that was good enough. Maybe.