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For All The Wrong Reasons	By : darqstar Category: G through L > House of 1000 Corpses Views: 4942 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own House of 1000 Corpses, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I do not in any way own any part of the movies House of 1000 Corpses or The Devil's Rejects. I do not own most of these characters. They are the property of Rob Zombie, Liongate films, and whoever else holds a commercial or property license over them. This is fan fiction, intended for the sole purpose of entertainment. No one has been paid to write or host this story. No one is paid or will have to pay to read it.

THE STORY ITSELF DISCLAIMER: This story is rated NC-17, for disturbing images and excessive violence as much if not more than sexual contents. If stories involving murder, rape, extreme violence, cannibalism, humiliation, and so on, are not your cup of tea, DO NOT READ IT. If you are under the age of 18 don't read it either.

Specific Chapter Warning: None but the language.

Epilogue

Seeds of Memory

It's been six months since I was found in the basement by Deputy Coggs and the rest of the Ruggsville police department. Six very long, very strange months, but, the doctors, the psychiatrists, the therapists, they all tell me I'm going to be fine. And I'm actually starting to believe them.

I had everyone really worried the first few days, when I wouldn't talk or cry, or do much of anything. The words �Post traumatic shock syndrome� and other bits of jargon were passed around. Doctors, shrinks, everyone but the good fairy were coming in and out of my room, trying to get me to talk, laugh, maybe even sing a little song or perform a little dance, to show some type of reaction other than to stare into space. I stubbornly refused. I'd spent too much damned time being a performing dog for Otis, I didn't owe these assholes anything. The only thing I would do is point to my thigh and the words �Otis's Whore� letters carved into them, whenever they would ask my name. I think I did it in part, just to watch them flinch.

Then, Coggs came in one day to visit. Coggs actually came every single day to visit me, sometimes even bringing his wife. But on this particular day, he was alone and he had some news for me. Otis, Baby, and Spaulding had been gunned down on the highway. They were dead.

I stared at him in total disbelief. There was no way Otis could be dead, Baby either. You can't kill the devil. Spaulding, well, I didn't know him, so I couldn't say. But Otis and Baby were both the devil. Otis in particular. He was immortal.

Coggs kept assuring me, they were dead, giving me some details, not all of them. I was sure at first he was just saying this so I'd feel safe. Finally, he showed me photos of the three of them. They weren't pretty photos either and Coggs would tell me later he really didn't want to show them to me, but was afraid he'd have to, which was why he brought them.

He handed the pile to me. Freshly developed, 8 x 10 colored glossy photographs. Otis in the front seat of a car, Baby and her father in the back seat. Blood was everywhere, along with a fair amount of guts and other inner workings. I stared at the pictures for the longest time.

�I'm sorry I had to show those to you, honey,� Coggs said. �But you have to believe me. They're dead and they won't ever bother you again.�

I started to shake like I was freezing, but I wasn't. Coggs' expression changed to one of alarm. �Honey, what's wrong? Should I get the doctor?� He still called me �Honey� even though my hair had been washed so he could see it was brown.

I shook my head to the suggestion of the doctor. I drew in a huge, gulp of air, then started sobbing. I had enough fluids in me now. Tears streamed down my face and I didn't care, I just kept sobbing.

I was still hooked up to a few million dollars worth of machines that set off alarms every time anything about me changed dramatically. So, when I started crying, nurses came to see what was up.

They found Coggs sitting on the bed, his arms around me, as I poured gallons of tears and buckets of snot all over the front of his uniform. I was hugging him back, crying like a lost child who finally managed to find her way home.

*****

I wish I could say that after crying, I soon became my old self and everyone was happy, but I'd be lying. I was a wreck, emotionally and physically and we all had to work with that. I ended up staying in the hospital for four months, not just because of physical problems, either. A good amount of that time was spent having my brain unscrambled.

When word got out that there was someone who had lived almost a full year with The Devil's Rejects, as the media had nicknamed Otis, Baby, and Spaulding, and was still alive to tell the tale, the media almost fell over themselves to be the first to exploit me. Deputy Coggs, Sheriff Dobson, and the entire Ruggsville police department worked their asses off to make sure I wasn't turned into some media freak. For a long time, there were always two officers either in my room or right outside the door. I found out later a lot of them were unpaid volunteers, doing this in their spare time. There were a lot of officers on the police force that had children, many with daughters close to my age and I think they all looked at me as what could have happened to their daughters.

Coggs was the most devoted to me though. He didn't come up to guard me, he came up to visit me. He brought his wife, Mary Lou, a lot too. They fussed over me as if I were their daughter. As it turns out, they didn't have a daughter, but they did have two sons, both grown up and living on their own. When the doctors finally lifted my eating restrictions, Mary Lou made it her mission to bring in every food she could think of to tempt me. When I was more free with my speech, I kidded her that she was going to make me fat.

�Oh, I'll bet you've never worried about bein' fat your whole life, girl!� she said, laughing.

�You a little piggy girl? Can't keep her face out of the cake and ice cream?� I heard Otis's voice so clearly, I would have sworn, he was in the room. I looked around for him, instantly panic stricken.

�Honey, you all right?� Mary Lou asked, seeing my fearful expression.

I took a deep breath and realized the voice came from inside my head. I was safe, Otis was still dead. �Yeah, I'm okay,� I finally managed to say. �I-I just was remembering something.�

*****

Dr. Samuel Winston was my primary psychiatrist. He was an older gentleman who reminded me of Colonel Sander's right down to his love of wearing white suits and string ties. It was his job to get me to talk about what happened while I was staying with the Firefly's. And it wasn't an easy job at first.

The words �Stockholm Syndrome� came up in my treatment a fair bit, especially when the entire team of headshrinkers were clucking over me. Dr. Winston dismissed Stockholm Syndrome the first private session we had.

�Everyone, every situation is different,� he explained to me. �You can't give a convenient tag to every single kidnapping in which the victim is forced to deal with her kidnapper, forced to even learn to get along with him. I dislike easy labels� I almost respected him just for saying this. All the other doctors seemed to get off on finding a neat label to pin on me. When I couldn't talk, it was �Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome.� Now that I could talk and didn't spend all my time screaming how much I hated Otis and the Firefly family, I was suffering from �Stockholm Syndrome.�

I wasn't a model patient at first, I admit it. Deep down, I was certain if everything that happened, everything I did while being Otis's Whore, got out, I'd be loathed by the world. And it was Dr. Winston's job to get me to tell everything, so for a long time, our sessions were difficult as he tried to get me to talk and I refused to tell him a lot about what happened. I'd stick to the basics so it ended up that any information had to be pried out of me so our sessions almost ended up looking like a black comedy.

�How did that writing get into your thigh?� He'd ask.

�Knife,� I'd say.

�Did you put it there yourself?�

�Sorta.�

�Did you do it of your own free will?�

�Hm... well, yes. And no.�

�Would you care to elaborate?�

�No.�

Then, one afternoon in the hospital, when it was just the two of us, he very casually asked me if there was anything about being a captive I enjoyed.

Before I could think, I just blurted out with, �Yeah, having sex with a man who understood the female orgasm was pretty fucking nifty.� I leaned back in the bed, trying to gage his reaction. Enough was enough, if the doctor wanted to continue to chat it up in my face, continue to be the man who treated the girl who survived The Devil's Rejects, then yeah, he was going to have to deal with exactly who I was, exactly who I had become.

�I would imagine,� was all he said.

�Don't get me wrong, Doc,� I continued, determined to shock him. �There was a lot of stuff having to do with sex I'd rather forget.� A vision of David, his dick spurting seed as his neck spurted blood filled my vision for a moment, and I had to push it away before the tears started. �But, when Otis was in the right mood. Well, he could really fuck. I mean really really fuck. Like a pro. I don't think I'll ever meet anyone in my life who's as good in the sack as he could be.�

�I hope for your sake that isn't true,� Dr. Winston said, with of all things, a smile on his face.

My tough ass attitude faded with that smile. �Go ahead, say it.�

�Say what?�

�That I'm some sicko pervert,� I suggested, �that I had a lot of nerve enjoying sex with this necrophiliac murderer, that I should be sentenced to the ninth level of Hell for having orgasms with the most depraved maniac in the world. Go on, say it!�

�Would it make you feel better if I said that?� he asked.

�I-� I began, then shrugged. �I don't know. Part of me thinks it would.�

�Well, I'm not going to,� he said. �Because that's not the way I feel. You were in a terrible situation. You were dealing with a man who was going to murder you. He wouldn't tell you when, but it was assumed that it would happen someday. A lot of the time, you had no one but him. Of course if he was going to offer you any type of comfort, any type of pleasure, you were going to grab for it. That doesn't make you evil, that makes you human.�

I stared at him in disbelief. Finally, someone was offering me a solution, a way to be able to face what I'd done and not to feel guilty. Our session was supposed to be an hour that day. It ended up being five hours as I told him everything I could remember.

*****

Eventually, my name was discovered, and everyone started calling me Karen. Eventually too, learned to respond to that name. Once it was known who I was, and people were notified that I was alive, my parents, Terry, and almost every friend I ever had came rushing to the Ruggsville hospital to visit me.

Terry cried bitterly that this was all her fault, because this happened when I was going to visit her. My parents cried bitterly that it was all their fault for giving me a car that would be able to make the trip to Texas to visit Terry. Other friends cried bitterly that I was forced to go through so much. I cried bitterly because I hated seeing all of them in such pain. And I cried bitterly, because everyone seemed to think this was the thing to do. Every time I bawled like a baby, everyone would nod and cry with me and tell me how tears were so cleansing. I agreed to a certain point, but after awhile, tears stop being cleansing and start just being a force of habit

Danny even came to visit me, when he found out. He offered to marry me, but instead of weeping, I laughed. �You're such a goober,� I said. �You don't want to marry me any more than I want to marry you. You're just saying that because you feel guilty that I was held hostage for so long. You want to show me I'm still desirable to men, that I can still lead a normal life after all of this.�

�Well, maybe,� he admitted, looking a little relieved that I wasn't taking him up on his offer of marriage Then he got this almost guilty look on his face and asked, �Uh, is it true?�

�What?� I suspected I knew what was coming, but I figured I'd let him come out and ask me.

�Were you, uh, like, uh, raped and stuff?� Yes, that was the question I'd been expecting.

Why did everyone ask that question? Nobody ever said, �How did he beat you?� or �Did he ever whack you with a dead trout?� or even, �Did he get pissed off at you when you farted?� It was always, �were you raped?� I was getting so tired of that question. Still, I nodded. �Yeah, Danny, I was raped and stuff.�

�I'm sorry.�

That was another thing I'd noticed. Every time a guy found out I was raped, he would immediately say, �I'm sorry� as if he was personally responsible for it happening. As if by being born with a penis, he was automatically responsible, not just for his own penis, but for the actions of every other penis in the world and idiot that happened to be attached to those penises.

�It's okay,� I said, finding it amusing that I was the one offering comfort to him, rather than him to me. I didn't add the real truth which was, 'if you really want to be sorry , be sorry that the lunatic was a better fuck than you were.'

*****

My parents wanted me to come home when I was released, but I refused. I loved them, and eventually I did want to come back home while I figured out what to do with my life. But I wasn't ready to go home now. Jed and Mary Lou Coggs offered to let me stay with them, and I accepted. My parents started to kick up a big fuss about this, until Dr. Winston told them in his opinion, staying in Ruggsville for awhile was the best thing I could do.

�I want to be able to continue treating her,� he said. �She's responding beautifully to our sessions. Also, this gives her a chance to confront her demons. She'll be living in the same town where she was kidnapped. She'll be forced to deal with it. Once she deals with it, she can move on past it.

My parents finally relented and returned home, with promises to visit whenever they could and to call me at least three times a week. Since I was over the age of eighteen, I found their �willingness� to let me stay in Texas rather amusing, but I didn't say so. Instead, I thanked them for their love and concern and promised them that when I felt ready, I would return home.

I moved in with the Coggs. Mary Lou fixed up the guest room with a colorful bedspread and lots of fresh flowers. Both Jed and Mary Lou immediately made me feel like family. Their two sons were on their own, but still came over often for cookouts and other family activities. The older one was married with kids of his own, so brought the family over. I was included in all these family events from day one, without question. The older one, Jesse, and his wife Faye, even started referring to me as �Sis,� and their kids called me �Auntie Karen.�

I continued to see Dr. Winston once a day and medical doctors at least once a week. There were still a lot of procedures I'd need before I was 100% better. My knee was going to have to be operated on, and the orthopedic surgeon was betting I'd have to have an artificial kneecap put in. I had other bones that would need to be re broken and reset to make sure I'd heal right. But, they were waiting until I'd gained back more of my strength and more of my weight. Yeah, no one was going to call me fat now. In the meantime, I had a special brace that helped me walk on my bad knee, and crutches if it got really bad.

I made Jed drive me to where the house had been. He explained to me how Wydell had brought Otis, Baby, and Spaulding there, for purposes no one really wanted to discuss. Now Wydell was dead, and where the house once stood, was just a charred pile of rubble. But I insisted I wanted to see it. I told Jed that I needed to see it was gone, burned, and that I'd never have to worry about going back.

I walked around the property, poking at some of the rubble that hadn't been cleaned up. I found a dirty white tank top that must have been blown from the wreckage, so it never burned. Ironically, it had a flag on it and the words �Burn This Flag,� yet it had managed to be saved from the fire. I'd seen Otis wear it a million times. I picked it up and studied it.

�You don't understand!� Again, I could hear Otis speaking so clearly in my head, the place where Otis stayed alive forever. �The rest of the world, they're all dead. I'm not really killing anyone, I'm only bringing them to the state they have already chosen. You, my whore, might be one of the few people in this world that are still alive. But you'll be dead soon. At least once you die, you'll know you lived. Most people never know that.�

I held the shirt tighter in my hands, hearing that voice. �Most people, never get beyond the entrapments of their own minds! Stuck, in the boring routines of their own makings! As the leader, it's my job to show them what they were meant to be, what they picked for themselves, years before they ever met me."

Jed watched me, looking worried. �Did you want to keep that?� he asked me, pointing to the shirt.

I blinked, suddenly back in reality. I wasn't upstairs, I wasn't in the house, there was no house for me to be in. I saw the shirt in my hands and flung it away from me, as if it were dead and crawling with maggots. �Hell no! I just wanted to see if his fucking stench still clung to it, and yeah, it does.�

Relief flooded into Cogg's expression, and he rubbed the top of my head affectionately. �You're going to be okay, Karen. May not seem like it now, but you will be. Everyone is so proud of how well you're doing.�

The irony of all this �pride� in me, never escaped me. I was the hero of Ruggsville, the hero of all my friends and family, simply for surviving. I'd done nothing good for anyone, in fact, was costing the town a lot of money (they were taking care of my medical bills, out of some misplaced feeling of guilt, I guess) and other people a lot of pain as they had to deal with what I'd become. Yet, I was a hero, just because I never forgot, �It's in with the good air, out with the bad.� All because I stubbornly clung to life, when I should have just rolled over and died.

The other place I made Jed take me was the spot where it all ended, where The Devil's Rejects were killed. He really didn't want to do that and even called Dr. Winston to make sure it was all right. Dr. Winston told him it would actually be good for me to see the spot, it would re-enforce to me that they were dead and apparently, I could not have that reinforced to me too much. So, reluctantly, both Jed and Mary Lou drove up there with me in the car.

We parked by the side of the road and I got out of the car to look. It had all been cleaned up nice and neat, of course, but I imagined I could see the blood for a moment. The car still moving as the passengers were fired upon, their bodies jerking with the impact of the bullets.

I waited to hear Otis's voice in my head, waited to see if he'd yell at me, or insult me, but my mental version of Otis stayed quiet. I guess being confronted with his real counterparts death spot, shut him up. I was grateful for that; he spent way too much time talking to me as it was.

After a bit, I nodded and said we could leave. Jed and Mary Lou seemed really happy I didn't want to stick around any longer. They ended up taking me to a diner in town for lunch. We ate burgers and talked about life, about their grandchildren, about the next church rummage sale. We talked about everything but what had happened to me. I felt almost normal.

My insurance company came through, believe it or not, and gave me money for the loss of my Chevette. It was considered �Stolen� and that was that. I used the money to buy a used Jeep. Mary Lou's brother owned the dealership and he gave me a really good deal on it. I figured if I took decent care of it, I'd be able to drive it back to New England when the time came to go home.

Everyone considered my progress fantastic. Dr. Winston told me every time I saw him, that I was doing better than many doctors thought I would. Jed and Mary Lou told me all the time how wonderful it was that I was recovering from so much. My parents in every one of their many phone calls to me, told me how much they loved me, how proud of me they were.

Yup, I was quite the girl. I had been through hell and back, and I was going to be all the stronger for it. I was told that honesty was the best way to get through this, so I was honest with everyone on how I felt about things. When I was in town one day with Mary Lou and started having a panic attack because of seeing a blonde woman from the back, I told Mary Lou that it was because she reminded me of Baby. I told Jed that I refused to drive by where Spaulding's Fried Chicken and Gasoline stand was, even though it had been sold and converted into a regular gas station, no museum, no fried Chicken, just gasoline, oil changes, and clean restrooms.

I told Dr. Winston of the the times when I'd wake up in a cold sweat, thinking I was in the box, then getting into a panic because I wasn't in the box, so I was afraid Otis would come in and start hurting me. I told him about the nightmares where David got to die over and over again, in the same gruesome fashion. I told him how sometimes, instead of David, it was Danny who died. I told him about how I'd hear Otis in my head a lot, especially when confronted with something that he'd commented on, like when my weight was brought into the discussion. I told him I was paranoid about eating enough to be full, afraid of becoming that �little piggy girl� again.

I was the god damned perfect patient. I was honest with everyone, I was straightforward with everyone. I kept no secrets from anyone who should know.

Except...

There was one thing I did that I told no one about. Almost every day, if the weather allowed, I would drive out to where the end had come for Otis. I'd pull off to the side of the road, get out of my jeep, and climb up the ridge, so I was right above the spot where I could best figure he died.

And for hours, I'd pick wildflowers, and one by one, toss them on the road.

The End

**********

Author's Notes Well, we've made it to the end. Thank you to everyone who read this, and extra thanks to those who took the time to tell me what they thought. *hugs* to all of you.
This story was one of the hardest things I ever wrote. I tried to make Karen as average as she described herself. But, I soon realized that if she were average, she never would survive. If she were average, there would be no point in writing a story about her, she just would have been one of a bunch of faceless victims. And, the story would have been a lot shorter.
So, I ended up giving her, well, for lack of a better term, grit. She didn't know she had it, had she stopped at Spaulding's and bought gas, she might have lived her whole life not knowing that inside of her was a vein of steel. And, as I discovered that, I found I was actually growing fond of the kid. While being fond of your main character makes the story easier, in other ways, especially in this case, it make it harder to write about her, because of what I was putting her though. Yeah, okay, a lot of us find Otis hot. I do too, but there's a big difference between watching someone on the screen and going, "Yeah, he's dangerous... but he's sexy!" It's another to have to be a victim of his games. If there's one thing I tried my hardest, it was to try to portray Otis as in character as I could, given that we're seeing him only through the eyes of a victim. I leave it to you, readers, to decide if I succeeded.

Being a child of the '70s myself, I think the best way to end this is with a line from a Grateful Dead song...
"What a long, strange, trip it's been
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For All The Wrong Reasons

Seeds of Memory

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