Ally woke up and groaned as her phone’s alarm went off, playing Nirvana, it was Monday, the worst day of the week. She reached over and turned off her alarm and turned over. Just five more minutes.

“Ally, get up, you’re going to be late for school!” her mom yelled, and she rolled over to see that it had been thirty minutes since her alarm. Dang, that was going to be a crunch. Ally got out of bed and tripped over her dirty laundry from the day before. She caught herself on the dresser and looked in the mirror, which had a small layer of dust. A blue-eyed, pale girl with messy brunette hair stared back at her. The top of her desk was covered in random toys from her childhood, memorabilia she had taken to collecting, and clean clothes she’d been too lazy to fold and throw in her dresser. Her mom would likely yell at her to clean her room soon as she grabbed her shoes from a corner and started forcing on some clothes.

Everything she owned was from Goodwill and was just a tad too baggy so that she could, as her mom would say, “Grow into it,” despite the fact she hadn’t grown any bigger since she was fourteen. Ally’s mom couldn’t afford to get her the latest crazes of fashion. Being a single mother didn’t really afford one to be cavalier with one’s finances. Still, Ally was allowed to search for hours for her ideal clothes through the aisles, and she had assembled quite a cute collection of clothes.

Ally grabbed a pair of jeans, a black shirt with an old eighties band logo on the front of it, and a pink zip-up sweater to put over it before running to the bathroom and grabbing her flat iron. She looked down at her phone and saw she had fifteen minutes before the bus arrived. In that case she would skip breakfast, she wasn’t going to show up to school looking homeless. She started straightening her hair, making occasional passes at the time.

That was all the time she had, she unplugged the iron and looked at the mess in the mirror and quickly decided to put it up in a ponytail, that would cover up the rush job. She grabbed her makeup kit and put on some lipstick and mascara. That would do, luckily, she hadn’t broken out anywhere so she could afford to go a day without applying any foundation or blush.

She ran out to the entranceway, where her backpack was, and scooped it up while zipping it up. The bus would be there any minute and she opened the door. “Honey, wait! Breakfast.” Ally turned around and saw her mom handing her a homemade breakfast burrito and grabbed it without thanks. Looked like she had anticipated her opting for her appearance over her well being that morning and spent the time covering for her. Ally turned around and ran out the door and took off towards the end of her driveway.

Just in time, the bus rolled up to the gravel and she stepped inside to receive the instant scent of too much deodorant and perfume as every other teen onboard attempted to mask the awkward smell of puberty with whatever product they could get their hands on.

She stepped down to the back of the bus, where most of the seniors and juniors would sit, as few as they were. All of them, like her, had parents who couldn’t afford to buy them a vehicle, forcing them to still take the bus to school. Some kids were lucky and could hide their misfortune by walking home or were close enough to one of the local businesses that they could walk to a job long enough to afford an old beater on their own. Out in the country, you couldn’t get anywhere without a vehicle, and there was no way to be employed if you didn’t have a license unless you were prepared for a multi-hour walk.

Ally talked to her friends at the lunch table about the weekend and the upcoming homecoming game that would be that Friday. Supposedly there were going to be a few large reunions this year at the game, and they were expecting a crowd larger than the stands could even accommodate. The school had decorated the halls in banners of the school colors of black and blue welcoming back the different alumni, even though the game itself would be outside at the track and football field. They would be opening the gym, cafeteria, and auditorium for a dance after, and the alumni had booked a local band to play while they reminisced their high school days.

Ally’s mom would be there as well, as the class of ’05 had put out on Facebook that they would making a point to make this a big get together after their ten-year anniversary had to be cancelled due to homecoming game being cancelled by bad weather. Corona had delayed their ability to make it up, and after the pandemic they had decided this would be the year they would all meet up and catch up, seeing what they had been up to for the second half of their lives so far.

After lunch was U.S. History, and she doodled in her notebook while the teacher droned on and on about nothing that mattered.

“Ally.”

She was currently drawing a nice rendition of her dog, who she had taken to drawing portraits of in her free time.

“Ally!”

She looked up and realized the whole class was staring at her and then stared back at Mr. Hansen, who was looking quite unamused back at her. “What?” The teacher didn’t blink as the class laughed.

“I asked that now we were done discussing the rise of horizontal integration monopolies, what the class thought was vertical integration meant?”

“Um…”

Mr. Hansen had her attention, so he eased the tension with a smile, “Its fine, no wrong answers.”

“They… had taller hotels?” The class laughed.

He shook his head, and then called on Aaron from the front row as he had achieved his objective of forcing Ally to pay attention. She closed her notebook and glanced around to figure out what page they were on for their history books.

At the end of the lesson Mr. Hansen handed out their graded assignments from a project they had turned in last week on the American Revolution. He handed the packet to Ally and said, “I have some notes to help you improve next time in there. We can discuss it in detail later if you want during your study hall.”

Ally looked down and saw the D- staring back at her. “Alright,” she mumbled and jostled out into the chaos of the hallway as the school erupted in euphoria as the day ended and everyone tried to rush to get home and Ally got back to her locker, and loaded up the homework she hadn’t had a chance to finish in study hall.

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Another trip on the bus took her home forty-five minutes later and she walked to her bedroom and threw herself on the pink sheets of her bed while dropping her bag to the ground. Her dog, Lily, who was sleeping in the living room must have heard her because a second later she jumped up onto her bed and disappeared with a whoosh into the cushioning of her comforter, before awkwardly trying to jump over her own indents to reach Ally.

“Hey, girl, ready to go outside?”

“Bark?”

“Outside, outside!” Ally said in puppy-speak and leapt out of the bed.

“Bark! Bark!” Lily jumped off the bed and sailed through the air before landing on the ground, her legs failing to catch her leg and her body hit the ground before bouncing off and bounding off cartoonishly towards the door, her little legs whirling hysterically on the ground as her paws slid on the smooth wooden floors.

They had moved to their current home into the township of Clayton from Hazelwood after the incident. Most of the towns out in the country were too small to even have their own post office, and Clayton served as the city for the mailing address of residents across multiple towns. The change in location from Hazelwood, only ten minutes away, was supposed to help Ally and her mom distance themselves from what had happened so they could move on, which Ally had readily done. Her mom, however, still struggled with that day.

Lily was running circles in front of the door when Ally managed to catch up to her, a white tornado of poorly restrained excitement, and Ally opened the door as the dog bolted like lightning into the yard, walked five feet into the grass, and immediately started peeing.

Lily looked back and smiled her broken smile, her teeth a jagged mess from before Ally had gotten her from abuse. The dog, despite the experience, loved people, quickly warmed up to the family and followed Ally everywhere. The scars on her body had been quickly covered up by fur, and the only sign of damage was a couple of healed gashes on her snout and brow.

Lily began sniffing around the yard while she looked for somewhere to poo, finished her business, and then ran back to the front porch to proudly declare with a bark that her official business was concluded, and she was ready to go back inside. Ally smiled, praised her, and the two walked back inside where they both went to the living room and Ally turned on the TV while the dog cuddled up in her lap and wagged her tail.

The afternoon news was on the local channel, and Ally watched as the anchor walked through the oh-so-very-exciting news of Indiana. So, in essence, boring. Some big shot CEO of Lamb had recently announced they were changing their headquarters to Indianapolis, there was a new type of crime in the inner city aimed at old homes, and finally the news changed to something that made Ally become very still.

Lily looked up at her and tilted her head to the side quizzically as she felt Ally’s demeanor change, saw she was looking intently at the television, and stared at it with her in confusion as the news anchor said, “We would like to advise now that if there are any younger members in our audience, that parents and guardians have them leave the room for our next story. Today marks the anniversary of the first murder in the Hazelwood serial killer case, and police are asking that anyone come forward with information to help them find the killer, who has been at large for seven years.”

“While there are no prime suspects, witnesses report a man in jeans, boots, a tan Carhartt jacket, with varying descriptions of his head and face, all agreeing that he appears white as paper. He is approximately six-two and is believed to be in his mid-twenties. His first sighting was at the residency of Mary Thomas, where he killed three people and attempted to murder the owner on the day of her daughter’s birthday party, but this was not considered his first crime.

“Police theorize that he first struck on this day the prior year as he was still refining his modus operandi and signature with the death of Philip Conway. The following description, while disturbing, we believe is important to understand so that viewers know what to look out for in the perpetrator.

“The murders are carried out by incapacitating the victims in any way, but the murder method is always the same way. Victims are decapitated, and witnesses claim that it is achieved by having one or more pigs eat their heads alive.

“Police say the killer always murders in bouts of threes and prefers to leave a survivor to witness his crime. Police have yet to find the killer when called and attempts to capture him or gather additional evidence on him have been met with difficulty. To this date, he has murdered nineteen victims, killing about once a year, though has been rising in frequency.”

The TV turned off, and Ally turned to see that her mother had entered and picked up the remote and was looking at the television in horror. “Mom, I-,”

“I need a moment.”

“Mom, I can explain, I-,”

“Allison, please!”

Ally fell silent, her mom had refused to call her Allison since her tenth birthday party, instead opting to call her Ally ever since. It seemed to be part of her way of distancing herself from the incident, but when she was deeply upset, she would still say her full first name.

Ally stared at her mom who held herself while shaking and walked around to let herself into the kitchen. She got out a pan, and started cooking the meal that her mom was originally going to make. It was the least she could do while Mary was in the living room coping.

Ally poked at her food, cream of mushroom soup mixed with rice and baked with chicken on top, and looked over at her mom, who was moodily eating her food. Finally, Mary broke the silence and said, “So Mr. Hansen was supposed to finish grading your history project today. How’d it go?”

Ally winced, Mary was trying to change subjects to something lighter, but unfortunately her grade was going to give her a conniption and she knew it. “I got a D-.”

“Excuse me?”

“I got a D-.”

Ally’s mom set her fork down and looked at her in disappointment, “Are you kidding me? I thought I told you not to procrastinate on it!”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why’d you get a D-? I know you’re smarter than that.”

Ally shrugged, angering Mary more, who continued, “You need to get better grades, you need to get into college. I just don’t want you to end up a failure like-.”

“Like dad?” Ally interjected with irritation.

“What?”

“You don’t want me to end up like a failure like dad.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did to grandma on the phone last night.”

Mary sighed, “You heard that.” Ally didn’t bother answering, it was apparent she had been. “Listen, I’m sorry, I don’t mean any disrespect to your father, especially considering…” her voice trailed as she looked miserably at her food.

The two finished in silence, and finally Mary attempted again, “Ally, I know you wanted your father to be there for you, and I know he was trying. I don’t think you’re a failure, and your grades have nothing to do with what happened with your father. Hell, he was an honor student all through high school. But I saw what a stupid decision could do to destroy his life, and I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes, big like his, or small like mine. I want what’s best for you.”

“I know, mom,” Ally said and hugged Mary.

That evening the two were getting ready for bed and were both in their pajamas before sitting down to watch the evening news together, which started at ten’ o’clock. The anchors ran through the same news as had been on during the evening, with some additional news added here and there, before they got to their final story of the evening. While normally the two would finish the news together, as part of their evening ritual since Ally started high school, tonight Mary turned it off as soon as the news story on the bottom changed to the text, ‘The Headless Hog Farmer of Hazelwood, still at large.’