[ WP ] After that she moved to the desert and only drank juice..

EDIT: IT WAS N'T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT. It was a breezy calm Tuesday afternoon, summer of 97. 
 
 He'd come to Osborn's Kitchen, half a mile west of Tom's barn, to eat a chicken fried steak with a jar of milk, and hang himself from the rafter of the half-finished back office. His name was Ned. 
 
 Ned's leather hands, calloused and greased, wrestled to clutch a salt shaker in the shape of a sunflower. He sprinkled a dash into his fresh squeezed cream from Tom's over yonder. It was always too sweet right from the bucket. 
 
 Fenster scrubbed the porcelain counter with a frayed rag and bleach-stained spray gun, his gray whiskers wove down his box chin to join with the mane of chest hair that grew from out his denim collar. 
 
 `` Ned, i n't you sposed to be in school today?'' 
 
 Ned ’ s cheeks rosied, stormed eyes numbed and fell to the floor. His gaze drifted to the peeled edges of periwinkle wallpaper, unstuck at the corners. 
 
 `` I hate it there. N-nn... noo one likes me.'' 
 
 `` Do n't worry, I wo n't tell nobody,'' Fenster added with a pained sigh. 
 
 But.. 
 
 A barefoot woman, maybe 27 or 30, raced past the front window. Her sundress torn at the seam, toes chipped and bloody. 
 
 “ Oh, what the hell? ” Fenster rose from his stool. He sauntered through the glass door, ringing a cheap bell alarm. `` Miss?'' 
 
 And she wheeled around. 
 
 `` There is n't time!'' she grinned, and turned to hop skip east. 
 
 `` Wo n't find much but corn that way!'' Fenster shouted after her. He lied, there were old farm houses and a junkyard too. 
 
 Ned folded a twenty onto the booth and mumbled outside, his heel catching every half step with a dull click-clack. Past the Judge.. 
 
 “ Where ya goin? ” 
 
 “ She needs help! ” Ned shouted, defensive, as he mounted the rusted yellow Honda Hobbit that his mom bought him in ’ 92; 45cc. 
 
 `` You're a good boy, Ned!'' Fenster called, with a shake of his head as Ned sputtered away. 
 
 He caught the girl a half mile out of town, slowed to a purr to keep pace. 
 
 “ Don ’ t try to stop me! ” she ordered. “ You don ’ t understand! ” 
 
 Ned shrugged. 
 
 “ Bike ’ ll g..get..tt ya there faster. ” 
 
 She smiled, her churning feet stilled and she hopped on. 
 
 “ Don ’ t a handsome young man got something better to do? ” she sighed. 
 
 “ I did, but it can wait, ” Ned answered with a bashful grin. “ Wha-wha-where ya headed? ” 
 
 “ There ’ s a sycamore halfway to Jamestown, ” she pointed past the rolling fields, over a hill that was the horizon. “ You ’ ll see it. ” 
 
 Ned didn ’ t ask questions. He twisted the choke and sped away. 
 
 Two miles past, and she nudged him. 
 
 “ Faster! ” 
 
 And he obeyed. Her brown locks whipping Ned ’ s cheek. 
 
 But the old engine sputtered, smoked… 
 
 The Hobbit wobbled and weaved, Ned clutched the handlebars. But couldn ’ t snag control. 
 
 Ned zipped off the road, slamming into the arms of corn and bouncing over tilled dirt. Sticky leaves slicing and smacking their faces. 
 
 And the bike skidded to a halt over two snapped stalks. But the barefoot woman didn ’ t miss a beat. She dashed away. 
 
 Ned looked to the sky, his bike in the dirt, and chased after her… 
 
 Catching her at the base of the sycamore. 
 
 “ Whatcha want wit the tree? ” Ned huffed. 
 
 She kneeled on a gnarled root. Reached beneath her skirt… 
 
 And retrieved a key. He sauntered over her shoulder… 
 
 “ What ’ s it to? ” 
 
 She brushed aside the leaves, shoveled with cut nails, chewing her lip. 
 
 And pulled a rusted lock free, it sealed an iron door. A click as she turned the key… 
 
 “ Help me? ” 
 
 They lifted the door. Darkness rose from beneath. Shadows seemed to swallow the light above.. 
 
 He peered over the edge.. 
 
 To find a ladder bolted to the bedrock, it ’ s rungs fading to black a hundred feet below. Yellow sulfur wheezed from the depths.. 
 
 “ Where ’ s it go? ” he asked. 
 
 She glared at him, skin stretched to tingles, eyes watering and red with lust, breathing sharp staccato. 
 
 “ Down there, that ’ s the answer. ” 
 
 He scratched his crown with a curved lip and curious brow. And she rolled down the top rungs. And he followed. 
 
 But by the time he understood, really understood… 
 
 She ’ d moved to the desert, and only drank juice. 
 

