#axed.start

[sylviasaint]

Sylvia has only been in town for a month but already she’s managed to establish a routine. Up with the sun, two cups of coffee, at least one cigarette, a shot of vodka to get her through the morning, lunch at Sapsucker, hours and hours and hours of seemingly endless research, drinks she doesn’t bother to count. None of the dots connect. Frustration begins to pique. She starts to think of Tess. She goes down to The Wagon and she starts drinking bourbon. The Wagon is crowded and buzzy and warm -- she can’t say that she likes feeling seen but there isn’t a lot of variety in Crescent Lake. Tonight she’s here earlier than usual and she sips her bourbon (two fingers, neat) unhappily at the bar, pouring over her notes. Attention tickles, hot and unwelcome at the side of her face. She can feel their gaze boring into her; intently curious. She sets her mouth into a hard line and tries to ignore it. Maybe it’s just because she’s new in town. Maybe they’re just looking. But she can’t help but assume that they recognize her: the woman who may or may not have killed her own daughter. “What?” Finally regards them with a cool and level gaze. The iciness maybe a little surprising coming from someone who looks like a Disney Princess. “Can I help you with something? Do you want an autograph? If not could you kindly fuck off?” 

[dvilshaircut]

the lake water isn’t exactly refreshing as it is fucking-cold-as-balls but hector is hollering like it’s the most exciting thing in the world, jumping off of the dock into the dark lake. surfacing up, hector rolls his eyes at the other still standing on the dock. “come on in, water’s fine!” he lies, goading them on with a smug smile before his stare turns mockingly suspicious, “what, you really think those cult freaks are still at the bottom? are ya scared?”

[undrtheivy]

despite it being officially spring and the fact that it was supposed to be her vacation, the air drifting off of the lake was incredibly cold. wrapping the sweater tighter around her shoulders, lisa’s eyes squinted as they scanned the water, half-expecting something to jump out of it the more she scrutinized it. hearing footsteps behind her, lisa glances behind her and sighs deeply at the other. “i don’t know why they call it crescent lake. looks more like a kidney bean, really.”

[vaniishiings-blog]

“no. no, nothing like that.” mila shook her head as her smile broadened--a breathy laughter accompanying the words. “i’m not like a ... journalist or anything. i mean, hopefully, this’ll be published--someday--but as a part of my doctoral thesis, so sort of a niche audience.” in her experience, people didn’t really want to know once she got into too much detail. usually people preferred to tell their own brushes with horror and she was eager to record them. “i’m hoping to get a more personal history of crescent lake while i’m here. you know, you or your family memories. or just things that have raised your hackles.” now that the conestoga was starting to empty out, she hoped someone would take her up on the querie--a couple beers in made even the most reserved townies verbose in her experience. “i can look up facts, but there’s no richness in that history. it’s the town’s memories--their little legends--that warrant preservation as much as the facts, don’t you think?”

[sinistcrkid]

❝I’ll tell you what,❞ he’s already put on his infamous shit eating grin, as he looks up at the night sky, and then back upon his potential customer, ❝Those stars would look a whole lot better while smoking on some Lemon Treez. I got some in my car, I’ll even give you a deal.❞

[diispatches]

stood up yet again, by connie pryzbylewski, nancy stood in front of the bowling shoe rental with one hand on her hip and an heir of palpable annoyance with a edge of desperate confusion. she hadn’t gone bowling since she was nine and her dad was still trying to buy her affection. she hadn’t even wanted to go out, but connie had insisted and bailed at the last minute when, nancy presumed, she’d received a better offer by richie jones who was always sticking his hands down the back of connie’s jeans and calling her sugar in some tacky retro attempt at romance. 

it didn’t matter anyway, because now that she was out and standing inside the crescent lake lanes, she was honorbound to either buy a can of hamms or pbr and watch the bowling league wannabes work on their perfect games, or figure out which shoe size she wore in bowling shoes and play a game by herself--both of which made her seem more desperate than she cared for. with how busy it was, neither looked particularly likely as the attendant seemed to overlook her raised hand every time ( either conspiratorially with conne pryzbylewski  to ruin her night or, more likely, on accident among the fray ). sidling up next to another solitary patron at the counter, nancy tried her luck and cleared her throat. “uh, hey, so do you know what the conversion on sizes is for bowling shoes? the last time i came here, i think i had light-up sneakers.”

[poltergeiists]

“that wasn’t fucking funny.” joey was normally pretty mild mannered, but after the ryan house had been broken into while she and the kids were all sleeping, she was certainly more on edge. it seemed that the latest uptick in strange occurrences had also inspired a rash of practical jokers too and she was not fucking in the mood after a particularly long shift at the diner. “christ jesus, this is not the night for that shit.”

it wasn’t her nature to get riled up over a joke, but she was still shaken about the rearranged furniture in her living and dining room that had been some kind of strange, unexplained piece of the break-in. at first she had even attributed it to her mom--a woman who was often so drunk she’d wear a constellation of bruises from myriad unexplained events. sighing in annoyance, joey rounded the corner to the parking lot. “are you really having car trouble or was that bullshit too?” she’d heard it from some other patron of the diner, so she didn’t even know if it was true, but she had some jumper cables in her car.”