Courtney
These fan fiction stories are based on characters created by screenwriter Michael Kingston for the Sony Pictures/Pariah film. No copyright infringement intended.
The only other lover she had had before Steve was Zebler Newman. Two years ago, when she was 21. Zeb had been the only boy in town she had ever remotely considered as a "boyfriend" or that silly old-fashioned term, "suitor". Zeb had been tall, athletic, a football fanatic who had played during all four years at high school up in Pallatine. He was 20 when he and his family arrived in town, and at first she hardly noticed him. He was perhaps two or three months younger than she, with hair so tow blonde it appeared white, and in a very boyish buzzcut. He looked like what she imagined the live version of Dennis the Menace looked like. Even his eyebrows were white looking. His face had been long and his chin rather pointed. He had a noticeable overbite and pale, piercing blue eyes.
He talked fast and excitedly, about his two favorite things in the world, football and music, and she could never get a word in edgewise, but she liked listening to him after she had gotten to know him. He and his parents had come through on their way to Memphis. They had gotten exhasted from the long drive from Pallatine and had stopped at some gas station some miles away, asking about a place to stay. Courtney later wondered what kind of advice the Newmans had been given, and whether they had heeded it or ignored it.
Either way, they came into town, accompanied by the Sheriff of course, and Courtney eyed the blonde boy and his parents with sympathy and irritation. If someone had warned them, it was their own fault! Mr. Newman liked the town very much and talked Zeb and Mrs. Newman into staying for about two weeks. "A real peaceful rest stop." Mr. Newman was the first one in the family to win Courtney's heart. He told her about how some kids working at a McDonald's in Pallatine had been murdered, and their bodies stuffed into the walk-in cooler. The reason he was shaken, he told Courtney, was that Zeb's cousin Linda had worked at that same restaurant and had quit maybe a month before the grisley incident.
Courtney had been unable to picture the horror. She had not even been able to picture McDonald's. She had never been out of RF. Not once. There were two restaurants in RF: Her mother's diner and Mr. Winter's little rib place on Main Street.
Mrs. Newman was a tall, fair, pretty woman that Courtney found easy to talk to. She seemed ill at ease in Rockwell Falls and kept talking about, "when we get back on the road and get to Memphis." Belma and the other womenfolk didn't seem to care for her, and she noticed it too. Courtney was the only one who had said more than "Hello, dear. Beautiful day!"
Mrs. Newman talked about how Zeb planned to attend the big University there, and how he wanted someday to play pro. But if not, he played something else besides football. "He plays guitar, sings and also plays piano."
"Piano?" Courtney asked dreamily. She had always loved piano music. Mrs. Hammerstrum played in church, and Courtney had always wanted to try it. She asked for lessons long ago, and Daddy had wanted to, but Mama had said that the diner needed all of their financial attention at the moment. Courtney asked each year for three years after that, and then stopped asking. Six years after she had first begged for piano lessons, Daddy died.
"Oh yes, he's just as good as Bruce Hornsby," said Mrs. Newman. Courtney did not know who Bruce Hornsby was. There was no music store in RF.
"So if the football thing doesn't pan out," Mrs. Newman went on, "Zeb can always get a music degree. He's been playing piano since he was six. He's been on the guitar since he was about ten or so."
When the Newmans were planning to "get back on the road to Memphis", Courtney began to hear the whispers in town. She'd heard them every time someone had come into town and stayed overnight. She had seen how old Mrs. Ford and her two sons had been walked out to the creek a mile north of town, and she had heard the three gunshots. She had stopped thinking about it when she saw Christian Hecker and Bobby Caine carrying shovels back into town. Sometimes the town looked the other way when the population had to be adjusted for newcomers. People were too tired for a festival every single time.
When they were told that they would not be able to leave, Mr. and Mrs. Newman had been too shocked to respond. Mr. Newman had actually said, "Well, I suppose we could settle here permanently. Seems like such a nice place to live. So quiet and friendly. No crime." Courtney had wanted to kick him. It was though he had lost any sense of free agency. Mrs. Newman, in contrast, was aghast that anyone, especially a bunch of high and mighty small town people who never went anywhere, felt that they had a right to tell someone that they couldn't leave town. She waited patiently for Mr. Newman to come around, and at one point, he did. "I'm getting a little bored here," he had finally admitted. "Let's pick up and move to Memphis like we planned."
At this point, the Newmans had resided in RF for nearly seven weeks. Courtney and Zebler had become lovers recently, and were even talking about moving Courtney to Memphis. There were conversations about her going to music classes. They even talked about getting an apartment together, or living in the dorms if his parents became too upset. As recently as a week after they first began having sex, they were talking marriage. Courtney had fallen in love with Zebler. He was gawky and awkward and excitable, but his passion for life had endeared him to her, and he was so adoring when they made love, calling her, "the most beautiful girl in the world" that she couldn't see her future without him. He was too good and too sweet for her to reject him.
While Zeb's parents were packing for the trip out of town, Mr. Newman became suddenly and violently ill. Dr. Greaver came straightaway and said he had the fever. There was a dry cough, but Mr. Newman could not clear anything out of his itching lungs. He stayed with the doctor for a week, and rapidly recovered. When he came out, he seemed to have fallen in love anew with RF, and told Mrs. Newman and Zeb that perhaps they should reconsider whether moving is a good idea or not. Resigned to stay, Mr. Newman began talking about opening up a music shop and selling music CDs and instruments. But Mayor Grateman had said, "Oh, I don't think that's going to work, Mr. Newman. We don't approve of that 'secular' music...all that jungle jive and pelvis-jerkin' stuff." And Mr. Newman had tried to explain that his family liked to listen to country music and Christian songs. But the Mayor only said, "Well now, sir, we've got all the music we need here in Rockwell Falls. Our fine bluegrass musicians make the Lord proud and happy every time we have any sort of get together!" Mr. Newman was reduced to just a store selling instruments...tambourines, banjos, etc. The Mayor seemed to concede to this, and before too long, Mr. Newman rented a small building next to Belma's diner, and Courtney watched, heartbroken for poor Mr. Newman, as the townsfolk refused to patronize the infant business. Belma wouldn't let her go in, and Courtney desperately wanted to touch the white keys on the grand Steinway that was delivered, at heavy cost to Mr. Newman, the second day after opening. She tried to sneak in a few times, but Belma was more watchful in the vicinity of her diner than she was around her house, which was why Courtney's secret relationship with Zebler had gone unnoticed. "If we discourage him, that awful store will close soon, and the Lord will show him what kind of living He intends him to make," Mama had said.
Mrs. Newman was infuriorated, but only shared it with Zeb and Courtney. "I don't trust these people," she said fearfully. "They're weird. Who in the hell do they think they are, anyway?!" Zeb was angry, and wanted to go to college in Memphis. Fall was approaching. And he wanted to take Courtney to Memphis too. He presented the idea to Belma, and Courtney shuddered at the glint in her mother's eyes. After a brief conversation from which Courtney was excluded, Zeb didn't mention Memphis and Courtney in the same sentence. Their relationship began to weaken. Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Newman fought constantly. She hated RF, calling it a "holy roller hell-hole". One night, in the tenth week since they had first come into town, angry at her husband and frustrated at her son because he was still loathe to leave Courtney behind, Mrs. Newman managed to walk down to the paved road and hitch a ride with a motorist who was driving in the direction of Bromine and Decatur.
Zebler and Mr. Newman were terrified, wondering what had become of Mrs. Newman. They talked in town of planning a search, and were inflamed when Mayor Grateman "forbade" it. This pushed Mr. Newman too far. "Sir, you've been acting like you're God Almighty ever since me and mine arrived here. I don't know who in the hell you people think you are, but we are leaving and you can't stop us!"
"I'm not the Lord God Almighty," said Mayor Grateman, with a grim expression on his face. "But I know His will, and it is not for you to leave our town."
Mr. Newman just stormed away. Defiantly, he and Zeb persuaded one of the scheduled delivery men to take them to Bromine. On the way out of town, Christian Hecker demanded the driver to eject Zebler and his dad, wielding his shotgun of course. A few days later, Mr. Newman was inconsolable, and he and Zeb stole one of the deputies' cars and tore out of town. They drove eleven miles and inquired at a gas station. Nobody had seen Mrs. Newman. They abandoned the stolen cop car in another tiny town called Edgemont. There were no cars to rent there, but they paid the owner of the motel $150 to use his pick up and go searching.
A thunder head formed over the region that evening, and a small twister touched down eighteen miles east of Rockwell Falls. It etched a black mark across the plains, tore off the roof of a barn, and ripped up a few utility poles. The result was live electrical wire on the highway, in the path of an oncoming pickup. Seeing the white-yellow sparks, Mr. Newman jumped out of the pickup and as he set his foot down, it made contact with one of the thick black fire-spitting wires. He died instantly. Zebler went to pick him up and was electocuted by the same voltage.
The story of the horrifying fate of Courtney's friends made it into her town within a day. She was devastated, and angry too. Why would they be so stupid as to touch live electic wire?! Four days later, more news came in: Mrs. Newman's violated remains were found 200 miles away, on the side of a highway in Carter County, Missouri. Courtney agonized, wanted to know, really, if the stories were true, or just lies, scare tactics coming from the Mayor, or that conniving Christian Hecker.
The weeks following the deaths of Zebler and his parents were a blur to her now. She had gotten so desperate to leave these horrible people that she had tried to sneak out one night. Mama had caught her, it never failed, and Courtney had been sent to Dr. Greaver for some intensive treatment. When she had "recovered", Mama had fussed, "Now you don't get any more silly ideas in that head of yours! Ideas are dangerous. You need to trust in God and accept His will. And when you do, you'll be happy. You're only keeping happiness from yourself when you constantly wonder what life is like out in that wretched, filthy world!"
Courtney had only smiled, nodded, and pretended to agree and resign herself to "God's will".
She hadn't been this happy in a long time. Not since Zeb. He had been such a sweet and gentle lover for her. Her first.
But he was gone, and Steve was here. Now. She loved Steve's dark red-brown hair, a shade or so darker than hers. She loved his eyes. There was a gentle calm there, a sadness, and not a trace of the boyish mischief that had been in Zeb's. She as disturbed as she was facinated by that meloncholy. Somewhere between amber and green, his eyes were deep and bright, expressive. Almost unbearably sad at this moment. If he had had tears dripping down, he would not have looked more sad. His flushed mouth was pouting, and it was attractive, but she almost wished he would put on a silly grin, like the ones Zeb used to put on. But she knew she'd never see that kind of thing with Steve. He was only 31, eight years older than her, but he had lost a lot. His wife and daughter.
She realized then, that she wasn't the smiling type either. She had seen too much at her age. Zebler hadn't realized how much sadness was inside of Courtney until maybe a month before everything had gone wrong and everyone had died. If he had lived in RF another few years, his silliness would have died inside of him.
She pushed Zebler out of her mind. He was gone and not coming back. His silliness was dead.
Another unwelcome face materialized in her brain. Bobby. Bobby Caine. Sweet Bobby Caine. Poor thing. Sweet and Poor. Those were the only two words she could ever come up with when thinking of Bobby. Such a sweet guy. Poor boy, if only I could tell him that I only want to be friends. She knew how boys felt about the word "friends" where a girl was concerned. And it was harder in a town with a population of 436. When she was a young teenager, there were several groups of kids her age. Some of the boys drank hard and ignored their parents' warnings about "God's wrath on winebibbers." Some other boys were hard and talked really dirty. They too, ignored their folks when they were reprimanded.
And there was Bobby. Bobby Caine. Cute, shy, unassuming. He was sweet without fail. There was that word again. Sweet. When they were nine, his Daddy had got a doughboy pool and had filled it up in the backyard. Bobby dove, headfirst, and whacked his head on the hard bottom. Courtney had gone under and gotten him out before he drowned, and he had a pretty bad concussion, along with a huge goose egg. She didn't know how sorely embarrassed Bobby had been at this incident. Nor did she notice that his childhood crush on her had deepened over the years. She grew more and more beautiful every year, and he adored her long auburn hair, her delicate white skin, and her incredible blue eyes.
Whenever Courtney thought of Bobby, her first picture was that poor, sweet kid with the purple goose egg on the side of his head.
He had grown up, and was cute enough. He had been studying law enforcement under that jerk Christian. She hated Christian. If only Bobby knew how Christian mocked him whenever he wasn't looking.
Poor Bobby, she thought.
Mama would give her trouble. There was no doubt. But Courtney wanted to go. With Steve. He could take her with him to Chicago. I would marry you right now, if you wanted me to, she thought to Steve. We could never replace your family, but if you got me and Amanda out of here, we would go with you and never look back.
I know you love us.
She stopped thinking. She knew what the people in town were capable of when something developed that they didn't like, or believe was "God's will". Thinking of all the possibilities was making her sick with fear.
She had to protect him. The thought of losing him, of seeing him "escorted" out of town, by men with guns and shovels, was horrifying. She would rather die too, than face another lifetime, alone. With nobody to talk to. Nobody but this indoctrinated pack of fools with no minds of their own.
Mama would start in on how "Bobby loves you, honey. He wants to marry you. You know it's meant to be. YOU KNOW IT'S THE WILL OF THE LORD!"
She thought if she heard one more person say the words "God's will" or "the will of the Lord" she would snatch Christian's gun, and after shooting that asshole, shoot whoever was saying it.
She had to protect Steve. There had to be a way for them to get out of here.
