Whatever was playing, it sucked. Aaron, over it, rose and sauntered a bit swaggeringly to the jukebox. He needed to get the Hell out of Surette. The little he'd brought was packed and in the car; this was just a last hurrah before he headed out for good. Truthfully, he wished he'd never even come home. He'd done it for Micheal, mostly, who'd begun crying like some big dumb oaf when he'd heard about their siblings. If Aaron had been less of a sucker, he'd have told Micheal to shove off and grow a pair. Neither of them had even known the youngest one, Cassie, having left home when she was a literal infant. And as for Tyler? Well, he'd been all right, and the way he'd gone was a shame—but what good would their presence do? No, Aaron knew the answer to that, or at least he knew the answer Micheal would've given him: it was for their mother. Good ol' Momma. Course, regardless of the fact she'd given him life, Aaron had no respect for their mother. She'd married their father, after all, hadn't she? And if there was one thing Aaron knew, it was that his dad was a piece of shit.

From the minute Aaron had been old enough to understand language, Lindell St. James had put him to work. He'd had six-year-old Aaron—and Micheal, too!—selling everything from weed to cigarettes to cologne to knock-off attire. Really, anything Lindell could get his hands on, he'd put his boys to selling. Their father was nothing but a huckster, and Aaron had no love for the man. Poor Micheal. Big, dumb Micheal. He'd always looked past (or maybe through) Lindell's shady ways. Not Aaron. There'd been a time he'd loved his father. A long time, really, all the way through middle school. Somehow, Lindell had convinced his kids that he was some sort of entrepreneur, a jack-of-all-trades whose main trade was making something out of nothing. Like some Goddammed magician, Aaron morosely considered. And maybe there had been something magical in the way Lindell even now kept his family from financial ruin, considering the fact he'd never had a consistent job. Of course, the man's offspring were dwindling. Fewer mouths to feed, now.

Hastily selecting some early 2000s expletive-laden alt-rock (much to the annoyance of a family with a couple of young children trying to control their little ones while they waited for their food), Aaron returned to the bar, settling in next to his brother.

Gordon's wasn't anything special, just a local spot squeezed into a corner location, the entryway so narrow patrons couldn't stand side-by-side in the tiny anteroom. Once inside, the claustrophobic atmosphere only intensified. A long bar ran nearly the length of the establishment, its stools a mere three or four feet from the chairs and tables opposite, which created conditions that on busy nights were absolutely not catastrophe-safe. Fortunately for the bar's few regulars, Gordon's was pretty dead most days, probably because the daylight that poured through the front windows highlighted the peeling paint, grimy floors, and sticky tabletops in a way the nighttime overheads did not.

"What do you think's wrong with dad?" Aaron remarked apropos of nothing as he adjusted his weight on the barstool.

Micheal, his thick blondish mane swept into a knob-of-a-bun at the back of his head, hung his lower lip and stared at his brother. "Dad? What about him? You mean last night?"

"Yeah. You think he finally run out on mom?" Aaron thought of his father's conspicuous absence when they'd packed up and left that morning. Their mother'd told them Lindell had gone to a doctor appointment, and when she'd returned after getting his meds, he'd been gone, that Miss Mariana had claimed he'd walked off into the woods, probably to set the crawdad traps, though he'd been gone a bit too long for it. "You think he's all right?"

Wrapping thick fingers around his beer, Micheal half-laughed. "Wouldn't think you'd care."

"Nah, I don't really. Not gonna change me leaving. You?"

"No. I got to get back to work, anyway."

"Me too. Don't need to find out I been replaced by the time I get back. They say time off for bereavement and all, but you can't be sure with them assholes."

"Nah, we're union." The interior of the bar was a little too humid for comfort, as if the AC hadn't entirely kicked on for the day, and Micheal's face had a moist sheen to it, which he didn't seem to notice, even as a droplet of sweat trickled from his hairline along the side of his left ear. "I feel bad, though, leaving Momma. She's been pretty upset"

"Don't. That's how they get you—with guilt like that."

"She didn't guilt me. It's just more that with everything that's happened, I think she's gonna break down at some point." Micheal scrunched his lips a little, picked at the label on his bottle. "She seemed pretty happy to see us, is all."

A woman entered the bar, coming up the hall from the back (or maybe she'd always been there, maybe in the bathroom—who could say?). Aaron squinted his eyes a bit as he took her in. She looked rough, especially for mid-morning on a weekday. Wild unbrushed hair, sloppy makeup, upper half hanging out of a too-small top. She wasn't young, either. What kind of night had she had to be dragging herself into Gordon's looking like death? Then again, there he was, throwing back a third beer a good hour before noon. He looked back to his brother. "Momma made shit life choices. Not our fault she married him."

"You're only alive to say it cause she did."

"She could've left him. Never had to stay."

Micheal sighed internally, ignored Aaron. He'd spent most of his life following his older brother, thinking he was pretty awesome, a much better version of their dad, but since they'd been home, he hadn't appreciated the way Aaron spoke of their family. Family was family, according to Micheal's simplified understanding of the world, and while he'd accompanied Aaron out of Surette all those years ago, he'd not left for the same reasons. Not really. He'd wanted out of the town, sure, but it'd been more for the place's vibes. Micheal hadn't ever felt right in Surette. He'd really noticed the wrongness of the place only after leaving it, after starting and living a life on his own. He wasn't the big dumb oaf his father had always assumed he was; he was merely contemplative and kind, and time away to process the instability of his upbringing in the town had left an indelible impression upon him.

There'd been his father, of course, who'd been abusive in ways untriable by the law. And then there'd been the bayou itself, always creeping up on their home, threatening to engulf their yard and back porch during the rainy season. Micheal had spent enough hours out on those swampy waters amongst the alligators and snakes and frogs, unsure where to step or cast cages or float or even breathe (those mosquitos and gnats got pretty terrible in the summer months) to haunt his dreams for eternity.

"I been having some nightmares since we been back," Micheal thought aloud, almost more to himself than to the raven-haired man next to him.

"What are you, five?" Aaron scoffed, finishing off his beer and tapping it against the bartop to catch the tender's attention.

"Used to have them all the time, I think," Micheal recalled, paying little heed to his brother's derision. His eyes glazed as he thought back, remembered the night terrors he'd long forgotten. "They'd wake me up at night, and I'd never be able to sleep. Remember that? Momma let me sleep in their bed when I had them."

"Bet dad didn't like that."

"No, he didn't. Called me . . . called me a titty baby. Yeah, I remember that real well, all of a sudden."

The bartender spoke briefly with Aaron before providing him with another beer. "No love lost by us leaving again, then. Listen, Mike, this town is shit. You know it, and I know it."

"Yeah . . . I know you're right. And we got a whole other life outside of here." He squeezed his lips together and nodded as if he'd been struggling to make up the mind he'd already made up. "Hell, let's get out of here sooner rather than later. You about ready?"

It was then that Micheal noticed his brother looking beyond him, realized he'd been doing it all along, not paying much attention to the conversation they'd been having. Micheal turned to look where Aaron's gaze was directed and saw a woman seated at the other end of the bar; she was drinking what looked like a Coca Cola through a straw, and the way she wrapped her tongue around the thing as she overtly returned eyes at Aaron was enough to notify the younger brother as to the situation.

"Tell you what," Micheal stated, clicking his tongue off the roof of his mouth, "I'll gas up the truck, bring it back around. You stay here and finish your beer. Give me twenty minutes—you good with that?"

Without taking his eyes off the woman in the back, Aaron sniffed. "Sounds good. I'll see ya in a bit."

Micheal lifted and dropped his caterpillar eyebrows before shoving off his barstool and heading out. The tired parents of the two children eating an early lunch eyed him warily, but he could only shrug at them as he exited into the pale gray summer morning.

Left on his own, Aaron thrilled somewhere in the pit of his stomach, enjoyed a tightening below his belt. The woman lost no time in approaching him once Micheal had gone, and though Aaron knew she had to be a good deal older than him, he wasn't particular when it came to such things. How long had it been since he'd had a good fuck? Nearly a month, what with the couple of weeks they'd spent here and the brief dry spell he'd endured after breaking up with his most recent short-term girl. He'd wanted to indulge in a one-night stand or two after the dissolution of that rocky relationship, but he'd gotten some kind of stomach bug, and then there'd been a dearth of women when he'd gone out . . . well. It didn't really matter, at the moment. This one looked more than willing, and he had no reason to start getting picky.

"Hey, hon," was what she first said, slithering onto the stool Micheal had vacated. "I think I know you."

That put Aaron off, slightly. He laughed. "No, I don't think so."

"You sure?" she pouted. "You look damn familiar to me."

"I hope not."

It was her turn to laugh, though she edged her laughter with a slight unease. Bleach blonde, her amply exposed flesh exuding an orangey tint, the woman jostled her breasts just enough to (she hoped) keep the man's attention.

Aaron couldn't help himself. "Up front or after?"

Scrunching her nose in a rather grotesque attempt at cuteness, the woman recognized her mistake and grew serious. "Depends."

"On what?"

"How much I trust you."

The man studied the product before him, smirking. He finished off his drink. Wiping his mouth with his forearm, he scooted back his barstool and slipped his wallet from his back pocket. He let the woman watch as he removed a five dollar bill from the sheaf within. "I'm good for it," Aaron assured her before leaving the tip on the bar.

In reply, the woman grinned, though this time there was nothing cute about it, and she headed back toward the bathrooms. Aaron watched her go, waited for the bartender to occupy himself, and followed her back, ignoring the disgusted looks on the faces of Gordon's only other grown patrons.

"I do know you," the woman noted almost gleefully as Aaron entered one of two single-use bathrooms and locked the door behind him. She backed up against the far wall in what appeared mock bashfulness. "I see it now, in that chin of yours. You're Lindell's boy, ain't you?"

The sound of his father's name flipped some invisible switch in Aaron; he dropped his hands to his sides, hardened his lascivious glare.

"Oh, don't you worry, babe. Your daddy and I go way back. I'll take good care of you." She ran a pink tongue across her spaced teeth. "Maybe even throw in a party favor."

Aaron's fingers curled tightly, then unfurled and stretched. "I don't want any special treatment on account of him."

"All right, then. No party favors." She pulled her top over her head, unsnapped her massive breasts from their cheap red lace bra while her patron watched. Once her tits were exposed, she ran her hands over them, pinching her own nipples. She writhed against the wall as if he were already pressed up against her, feeling her up.

Whatever this woman's connection to his father, Aaron was too agitated to let it ruin his fun. Still, she was only a whore; whatever special treatment she thought he deserved, she certainly wasn't going to get any. Covering the distance between them in one stride, the man ignored the woman's breasts and, trapping her in the corner, placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down to her knees before unbuckling his pants and pulling out his painfully hard cock. With no preamble, no explanation or attempt at gentleness, Aaron forced himself into her mouth, began shoving in and out so hard her head knocked against the tiled wall. He ignored the muffled sounds her throat made, thought nothing of what she might be trying to say, of the hands scrabbling at his thighs and ass. She'd mentioned his father, after all, hadn't she? She'd gone and fucked herself, saying that name. Not his fault she'd done that. If there was one thing Aaron didn't appreciate, it was sharing a whore with his father. They'd done it once, hadn't they? Hadn't Lindell paid for Aaron's first time, that birthday trip to New Orleans? And hadn't he fucked her first, right before telling his boy to try to live up to whatever he'd given her? Hadn't Lindell done that? And hadn't he given root to the hundred insecurities that'd blossomed like raging viruses in this oldest child of his?

The woman's long-nailed fingers had begun to pinch and squeeze, to actually hurt the backs of Aaron's thighs, but he'd moved past recognition, past awareness that he was with another human being, until in a moment of horrifying clarity, hands pressed flat against the wall and encumbered by the jeans that'd scrunched only to his knees, he caught a glimpse of the round white eyes of the woman suctioned in a froth around him. They focused not on his face but toward the toilet and the sink, toward the mirror, and just as Aaron began to release all that had built up within, the shimmering vision of white and blood in the reflective glass stepped out of it, wielding a razor-sharp, mercury-flashing blade.

Within the twenty minutes he'd promised, Micheal stepped back through the door of Gordon's. Upon immediate inspection, he saw no one but the bartender and rolled his eyes at his brother's thoughtlesness. He was excited to share what he'd remembered—or, not so much excited as anxious. The nightmares, he recalled what they'd been about! A little girl, always a little girl. She haunted the dreams of his childhood, wading through swampy waters in her glowing white dress, her eyes bloodied and bandaged, an axe trailing in her pale hand . . .

"Aaron!" he called, banging on the door of the locked bathroom. This was no time for patience. Micheal's memories gave him foreboding vibes. He wanted to hit the road. "Aaron, open the damn door!"

The lock gave way quite easily, as if even it were ready to go, but beyond that bathroom door, the unfortunate mess of a blood-spattered woman sputtering incoherently beneath a nearly unidentifiable minced corpse put an unfortunate stop to any plans Micheal had of getting out of Surette that day.