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Chapter 13

Our session of relaxation (if you could call it that) was interrupted by quick footsteps clambering up the stairs and Mama frantically running into the room, calling for Otis. She told us that there were some cops outside, and Otis immediately got up to get a gun for both Mama and himself. Before storming out of the room, he turned to me and said, "Just stay here, I'll get ya if I need ya."

My heart started pounding in my chest and I felt slightly lightheaded. This was my first run-in with the police and, although Otis didn't seem too worried about it, I certainly was. I told myself to trust in his and the family's ability to deal with the law in an attempt to calm my nerves. I shakily dragged my own body to the window to see as much as I could.

I let out a sigh of relief at the sight of only one cop car, hoping that there weren't more further up the road or hidden somewhere out of view. I couldn't see anyone in uniform, however, which didn't help my stress. I soon heard the quiet sounds of the old, rickety front door opening and two voices, one the familiar charming of Mama, and the other was foreign. I assumed the unknown voice belonged to a cop.

Without any clear dialogue, I watched Mama invite the man inside. Then, movement in the corner of my eye drew my attention to a secluded section of the front yard, hidden from the man on the porch. What I saw was Otis, now donning a cowboy hat, creeping up on something further away in the front yard. That portion of the yard was invisible from my vantage point, so I focused on the conversation downstairs, all while hoping that Otis would be able to handle whatever I couldn't see. The thought seemed trivial, worrying about a person as strong-willed and relentless as Otis, but I couldn't help but fear for his safety.

I pushed my concerns to the back of my mind, repeating to myself that Otis would be fine. I opened the bedroom door slowly and quietly to make Mama's conversation more audible. All I could hear were feminine giggles and a deep male voice. Other than that, no words were discernible.

I heard the muffled sound of a chain breaking coming from outside, followed by the soft static of a walkie-talkie coming from downstairs. The next thing I heard was a loud BANG! and then nothing. I recovered from my temporary deafness, only to be deafened once again by three more gunshots from the front yard.

I desperately wanted to exit the room to see what went on, but I remembered Otis's orders to stay in the room. My fear of the consequences for disobeying overpowered my desire to investigate the four gunshots. I soon came to the realization that I may have prematurely assumed that Mama and Otis were the ones who fired the shots. For all I knew, the cops could've shot them, and leaving the room would be a death sentence for me. If the cops did somehow manage to overpower the Fireflies, I wouldn't be spared just because I was new in the house.

My seemingly incessant worries were put to rest once Otis returned. I couldn't suppress a sigh of relief at seeing him, to which he replied, "The pigs are taken care of, nothin' to worry 'bout." He must've thought I was worrying about the family's future and not primarily his safety, but I wasn't going to reveal the true source of my stress to him anytime soon.

He once again told me to stay in the room while he fetched one of the bodies and brought it back upstairs. The man I saw wasn't wearing a uniform of any kind, which made me wonder why he was with the cops. The shirt he was wearing had two holes in it, with bloodstains surrounding the ripped fabric. Otis and I hefted the body onto the bed, and Otis went to grab a few knives.

"I figure we can give the ol' man here a makeover, don'tcha think?" he asked as he handed me a slightly curved and deadly sharp knife. I agreed to his rhetorical question, and he started giving me instructions for what he wanted done to the body. A few minutes into the operation, I realized we were skinning the man, for what purposes I didn't know—yet.