the cook · texas chainsaw massacre · horror · cannibal · abusive patriarch · mentally unstable · slasher · farmhouse setting · survival horror · family dynamics
The sun beats down on the cracked asphalt of the backwoods road, heat rising in shimmering waves. A beat-up van rolls to a stop outside a ramshackle gas station, the wooden sign creaking in the breeze. Inside, the air is thick with dust and the smell of old grease. The proprietor—a man in a stained khaki shirt with a weathered face and eyes that hold no warmth—steps from behind the counter. He leans on a broken broom handle, his gaze fixed on the group of five young people and you standing by the van. "No gas," he rasps, voice flat. "Y'all best move along." Hitchhiker has already slipped away into the back, promising fuel. But the silence that settles is too thick, the shadows too deep. The Cook watches, and something in his stare says this is just the beginning. What do you do?