Stitches & A Hammer.

Summertime is usually a fun time all around. It’s sunny, loud, and bright. Usually, Jane Howards enjoyed summer. She hated the cold, and the dark, typically. She was a fearful girl, for a young woman such as herself. She was 17 respectively, but not the eldest of the household. The eldest sibling was her older sister Blaine, and the youngest was her brother Matthew. They lived with their mother and father in the new neighbourhood they just moved into. This summer in particular seemed darker for Jane. Blaine had her license… she got when she was 16 and was 21 and well into the clear. Jane never got hers, so while Blaine could drive between cities to visit old friends… Jane was stuck. They arrived just into the beginning of summer, so there was no chance for Jane to join school and make any friends for this summer. Matthew didn’t worry too much about friends. He was 6 years old and had a lot of people his age on the street they now lived, who didn’t care much about who they played together with. People that were Jane’s age, however, were unfortunately a bit more picky about their choice in friends. Jane’s anxiety was never kind to her, and was often strong in her. It would cause her to sob, and twitch and shake when it started to peak. The only thing that seemed to ever calm her fully when she had these peaks or attacks was to sew. She had sewn an assortment of things and often kept or sold them. Before she moved, bullies found her to be the perfect prey. Her few friends weren’t much fighters either, so they could never offer protection. They would call her ‘Stitches’. It was never a clever or insulting nickname, but they knew her anxiety and self esteem being so low would cause any taunt to bug her severely. She was never one to dwell on it for too long, but it always made her anxiety flare up and convinced her that people hated her. Some did, but it was not her fault. She usually kept to herself, unless the need to speak to others became apparent for one reason or another.
But when they finally moved and the reality settled in, her shaking, twitching, and anxiety mixed in with sadness was stronger than ever. Blaine was a strong support, always doing her best whenever she could, but she worked and often spent time out of the house. Her brother, Matthew however, was almost like an anchor to Jane. He might have been significantly younger than she was, but was always encouraging. With little other places to receive such praise, she took it in stride. She deeply loved the boy, more so than a lot of siblings out there. She would die for him. Or kill for him, if it came to it.
About a week after the move, Jane was sitting outside with her brother Matthew and her sister Blaine. They were discussing plans for the summer. Jane wasn’t paying much attention to her surroundings, so she didn’t notice the bikes speeding close behind them. The bikes almost rammed into them, having stopped just in time. The riders were 6 teenagers, all ranging from young adults like Blaine, to as young as 13 as far Jane could tell. It was a rough guess, anyways.
“Hey! Watch what you’re fucking doing! We could’ve hit you! We don’t need your fluids on these bikes. They’re worth more than your shitty lives!” The lead girl shouted, the other 4 girls and 2 boys scoffed their contempt at the three siblings.
Blaine sighed, shaking her head in disgust, but not speaking. Matthew quietly fidgeted, not wanting to get in trouble. Jane, her anxiety being worse than usual, was peaking and was nearing a full blown panic attack.
The lead girl seemed to notice Jane’s twitching and shaking and trembling.
“Hey… I remember now. You’re that freak who moved in a little while ago. Trembling loser. Guess I should introduce myself.” The lead girl spoke, sneering at Jane while Blaine glared at them.
“I’m Josephine, and those girls behind me are Bonnie, Stephanie, Rose, and Amy.” Josephine said, gesturing to the aggressive girls behind her.
“Those boys over there are mine and Stephanie’s boyfriends, Chris and John. Don’t even think about talking to them, little twitchy freak.” Josephine spat. Blaine spoke up.
“Hey, leave her alone. Don’t you have anything better to do than scare some poor kid?” Blaine said. It wasn’t a sharp comeback or a compelling argument, but Blaine always acted like an adult instead of spitting insults at people like a jerk. Jane stared back at the group, too terrified to do anything. John stared at the girls and snickered as he whispered something to chris. Chris simply frowned. It wasn’t a mean frown, it was more disappointed and concerned. He didn’t have the negative aura that Josephine seemed to have.
“Now who the fuck asked you? Who was talking to you? I was talking to the shaking slut on the sidewalk.” Josephine hissed, spitting in Blaine’s direction, almost hitting her.
“Just leave her alone! Please!” Matthew said, standing up. Josephine and her gang laughed. All except Chris, Jane noticed. He still wore an exasperated and worried look. It didn’t comfort her in the least.
“Okay, listen here you little shit,” Josephine said, pushing Matthew over. “I’ll kick your ass, along with your sisters as well. So shut your mouth.” She said, Matthew now looking as scared as his sister.
Jane felt something stir. Like a spoon churning something inside her as she watched the brother she loved so dearly be shoved.
She wasn’t scared. She felt something… new.
She felt hatred. She wanted to hurt them… badly. She grabbed a glass bottle from the ground nearby her, smashing it off the pavement. She stood, holding the jagged piece of glass in front of her, pointed at Josephine in a threatening manner. Her anger grew and grew.
Josephine started to speak when Jane cut her off.
“Touch him or my sister, and I’ll kill every single one of you!” She screamed, her eyes wide with anger, hatred, and slowly building lunacy.
Blaine grabbed her arm tried tugging on it, but Jane kept holding out the bottle.
“Hey… it doesn’t need to be like this. She just gets jealous sometimes. Let’s all go home. This never happened, okay?” Chris spoke up, slowly walking forward, hand extended in a surrendering way. Jane lowered the bottle and Blaine tried taking her away. Josephine grabbed Jane and threw her to the ground and Rose grabbed Blaine and Bonnie grabbed Matthew. They held the the two siblings at bay, so they could not help Jane, now being attacked by Josephine.
Jane was shoved again, but she stood quickly. That feeling hit Jane again. Only this time, it came in so hard that it made her chest burn. Voices began to speak to Jane;
“Kill her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill them ALL!” It said. She agreed. For the first time, Jane wasn’t afraid.
She wanted to kill them.
She Josephine by the arm, twisting it aggressively until it snapped, The now broken bone poking through Josephine’s skin. Josephine shrieked in agony as the blood from the wound sprayed outward, landing on Jane’s white shirt and face.
Amy and John, who were standing by, rushed at Jane.
Jane, fuelled by anger and bloodlust, shoved the jagged glass bottle into John’s leg. It spurted blood as he cried out. Amy punched Jane in the face, catching her in the jaw. Jane was so filled with anger and adrenaline that she didn’t feel it at all. She grabbed Amy’s arm and snapped it over her knee like a stick.
Bonnie, Stephanie, and Rose helped the injured get up and leave. The gang of messed up teens were crying in agony as they left. Chris stood behind, watching them leave. He took one last look at the wide eyed Jane, now huffing and blood stained.
“I’m… I’m so sorry.” He said nervously, before leaving. He ran to catch up to the others.
Blaine and Matthew quickly started pulling Jane toward home, wanting to clean her before her parents got home.
As they pulled her along, Jane looked down and saw the blood all over herself. She began to get scared all over again.
But before anything could truly settle in…. she laughed.

(~)

A week had gone by. Jane hasn’t heard from the bullies since that day, and couldn’t wait to meet them again.
Throughout the whole week, as her fear died down at the end of the night… Jane realized how much she enjoyed hurting those girls. It was almost disturbing to her.
Almost.
She kept feeling that urge… the urge to kill. She desperately wanted to meet them again, so that she could jam a broken bottle into their throats instead of a leg. She started acting… different. She always bought pop bottles that were made of glass. She didn’t stutter. She laughed and smiled more. She talked more often, and more loudly. She began to sew more and more, admiring the needles for awhile before and after she worked.
Truth was, Jane was fantasizing.
After that week had gone by, her wish finally came true.
She was walking down the street, when Rose and Stephanie stepped around a corner, pulling her into an alley. They dragged her along to a shed, where Josephine and the others waited inside. It appeared Chris was absent, though.
“Just thought you could snap my arm and get away with it, you little fucking whore?” Josephine said bitterly, each word laced with her poisonous hatred.
“You’ll pay. You’re gonna fucking pay. I have a few… ‘tools’ I wanna use on that pretty little face of yours.
Jane began to struggle.
The two girls forced her onto a table where they tied her down. They gagged her and laid out her tools. Josephine had three knives, a pair of scissors and a hammer. Jane’s fear made a resurgence, causing her to began pulling against the ties holding her down and desperately trying to fight back.
Josephine took the scissors and began cutting up Jane’s hair. This caused her no physical pain, but Jane’s hair was a head of thick brown hair that she loved to style and braid. It was now cut in odd angles and mismatched and completely wrecked.
Then Stephanie handed Josephine a knife, with a sick smirk on her face.
Josephine took the knife, cutting away Jane’s gag. She stuck the knife in Jane’s mouth, and began to saw at her face, cutting a ragged slit from the edge of her mouth the the base of her right ear. She began hacking the other side of her mouth, cutting another long gash extending from the end of her mouth to above Jane’s left ear. She began to carve another slash from below Jane’s left ear to her right temple, across the nose and front of her face. She only narrowly missed cutting Jane’s right eye open. Jane didn’t let out a cry. She felt extreme agony, but never gave them the satisfaction.
Amy pulled out a small piece of fabric. Jane recognized it. She was the one that sewn that piece of fabric. A scarf.
“The girl likes to stitch up things… don’t we have a few needles laying around?” She said, an evil, cruel grin spreading on her face. Josephine went into a drawer, pulling out a sewing needle and a roll of thread.
Josephine, a sick and twisted grin on her face, began sewing up Jane’s openings in jagged, ugly sutures. The sutures were spread and ugly, but were the only things holding Jane’s face together. Without them, her face was peeling off from the damage the knives inflicted upon it.
She did the same thing upon Jane’s arms as well. Slashing them open and stitched them shut with that thick black thread.
The last thing Jane remembers is feeling the most intense burning sensation of the hammer striking the side of her head as she blacked out.
That was the day Jane Howards died.

(~)

Jane woke up. It was dark, and she was on the floor. A wooden floor. She sat up and looked around, she was in a large house, with boarded up windows and torn furniture. It was nighttime and her eyes could barely see anything. But then she saw it.
It was a tall figure. Too tall. Unnaturally tall. He had a white head with a smooth surface on it. No facial features, just a smooth sheet of skin. He was faceless. Although he has no mouth… he somehow spoke to her.
“Jane… what a pity. Your face has been mangled, and for what? You know what you must do.” He said in a deep, commanding voice. He sounded… unholy. Something that would come straight out of her nightmares but still keeping an oddly familiar feeling.
It was because he had been the voice in her head. He was the one who told her to kill them.
“You didn’t listen, and now this has happened. Show them suffering, Jane. KILL THEM.” He commanded. A metal object with a wooden handle dropped into her lap.
It was the same hammer that she had been struck by when strapped to the table.
She remembered the stitches upon her face… she could feel them holding the remnants of her mutilated features together.
“Go. DESTROY THEM ALL.” The demon commanded.
She obeyed. She set out into the night, hellbent and searching for blood.
Blood that had been stolen from her.

(~)

Josephine and her gang weren’t too pleased when they found out they had killed Jane. That hit with the hammer was never meant to kill her. They disposed of the body in the swamp of the forest nearby. They already found cops looking around that same night. Her family must have reported her disappearance when she didn’t come home from the store. They all sat in the living room of Josephine’s house, paranoid out of their minds as they attempted to wrap their brains about what to do next.
They all jumped when they heard a tapping at the door. They all sighed and Josephine stomped over to open it.
“Who the hel-“ she started, but was cut off when Jane wrapped her hand around her throat. Josephine’s eyes widened in shock as she looked at Jane, who had lifted her in the air with the hand that still clamped down on her throat, the other still held the hammer. Jane wore the same black pants and navy blue sweater from earlier that day, but she wore the hood on her head. Her now mangled hair sticking out every which way and her skin had turned white… the same sickly colour it had turned when they dumped her body after death overtook her.
Josephine’s throat was being squeezed so hard by Jane, that she couldn’t even squeak, never mind breathe. Jane raised the hammer and viciously struck Josephine’s chest. There was crunching, and blood, and she kept smashing her with the hammer until her torso was nothing but a shattered mess.
She dragged the body into the living room where everyone was still located. They were caught off guard when the blood soaked Jane dropped Josephine’s mutilated corpse on the table.
The others had attempted to escape, but Jane locked everything from the outside, and the door to the upstairs and the outside were blocked by Jane, who stood by the doorway.
One by one… Jane caved each of their skulls in. They tried fighting, fleeing, and begging, but she killed them all. There was only one left, who had decided to beg.
It was Stephanie.
“P-please! We d-didn’t mean to k-kill you! Please! PLEASE!” She sobbed as Jane stood over her. Jane chuckled, then giggled, then slowly laughed until she was hysterically laughing.
“You’re right! But these are my stitches now.” She said, raising the hammer. “And now, it’s time for you to earn YOURS!”
There was only one thing that Stephanie Williams ever heard before the hammer crushed her skull in one firm swing.
She heard evil, bloodthirsty, insane maniacal laughter.

(~)

Blaine was paranoid. The police couldn’t find Jane. She sat and watched the news. Hoping and praying something about Jane would appear on screen. Instead, it showed a home in the suburban neighbourhood that they lived in.
“A gruesome scene was found in the home of Josephine Rodriguez tonight, as police found 5 bodies, all believed to have been killed by blunt force trauma to the head,” the reporter spoke. Blaine listened closer.
“The current suspect is 17 year old Jane Howards, who is now suspected to be armed and extremely dangerous.”