by Kami Westhoff
It was a shivery late October, the full moon exposed
the mountain’s craggy teeth shredding the dark.
As we walked toward the Howard’s Haunted House,
we saw a man dressed as Leatherface from The Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, his yellow apron a flare smearing
the night. His chainsaw roared and reared as he lurched
and threaded himself through the huddles of people
in the line. Most laughed, lifting a fist for a bump or asking
for a photo, one lifted their child so he could see the mask
close up. Others, like me, screamed, shrieks forcing the air
to reveal its ghosts.
As middle schoolers, my friends and I would rent horror movies
from Video Depot: Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th,
Hellraiser, He Knows You’re Alone—anything with the promise
of dismemberment, demonic possession, a stranger at the front door.
Leatherface’s movie we never chose, somehow already knowing
a man with a chainsaw and face stitched together with other people’s
faces was something we couldn’t giggle away. Perhaps it was because
we were county girls, and every man we knew had a chainsaw.
We weren’t yet sure what to make of men, including our fathers,
the way their anger bloomed without warning, the way they could
shatter a room full of laughter with a fist on the table.
When Leatherface reached us, I turned toward my sister—
he was so close, his breath scoured the back of my neck.
What he said I couldn’t tell you, but when he revved
the chainsaw, I thought, Run, but my body stayed put so I braced
for the saw’s teeth to tear through my jacket, my down sweater,
my skin until I was a tornado of feather, wool, flesh, chunks
of flesh flecked with full moon bone.
Kami Westhoff (she/her) is the author of the story collection The Criteria, and the forthcoming Sacral, winner of the 2024 Floating Bridge Chapbook Contest, Sleepwalker, winner of the 2017 Minerva Rising Chapbook Contest, and two other chapbooks. Her prose and poetry have been published in various journals including Booth, Carve, Fugue, Hippocampus, West Branch and Waxwing. She teaches creative writing at Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA.