Severed #5

Part Five, "The Road Beckons"
written by Scott Snyder and Scott Tuft
art by Attila Futaki

Severed has from the beginning embraced its own metaphor for American modernism.  Historically situated just as American expansionism, technological innovation, and self-made idealism are booming, Severed is the gruesome, horrific underbelly, the story of those idealists who fall prey as they fall between the floorboards.  The equally gruesome, if ultimately hopeful, birth of a baby by amateur C-section in a tent on the side of the road is a bloody reminder of the dangers in this new world.  But sitting next to the pontificating predator Alan Fisher (olim Mr. Porter) as they drive to Mississippi and away from everyone who loves him, Jack Brakeman cannot hear that danger in his words or in his voice.

The nameless cannibal accomplishes his hunt by seducing others into trusting him, by removing one-by-one all his prey's other friends and family, and so he's quite accomplished at deception and often seems to revel in it, dangling the truth in front of his victims without them recognizing it.  But it still comes as a surprise when he arrives at a remote cabin to a delightful family who call him "Uncle Jethro".  He's able and inclined to sustain that deception.  He's the serial killer no one recognizes no matter how close to him they are.  It also reinforces his complete lack of conscience, his ability to differentiate between Sally's children with whom he plays and those whom he ambushes and eats.

It takes a while—and a violent confrontation with a shady pimp—for Jack to begin seeing his traveling companion for what he is.  At first, he grateful for the help against the greasy thug, but when he needlessly scalps him with his own knife, Jack sees the monster for the first time.  Just before they drive away, he sees Christy, the obviously underage prostitute left as vulnerable without the man who exploited her as with him.  They each, children that they are, are prey to the whims of violent men and each is, as Jack is coming to realize, in very real danger.  After being unwillingly drugged that night—probably to keep him from escaping now that he's seen the real Alan Fisher/Mr. Porter/Uncle Jethro—Jack wakes to find his wallet, with the photo of his father, tucked into the lining of Fisher's suitcase.  And all of a sudden, the stories he's been telling about Sam really don't add up.