Dead Meat PT. 4: Home

CONTENT WARNINGS: gore & body horror, bugs, parasites, animal death (mentioned), drunken arguing & physical escalation, discussion of sex (casual), blood consumption (mentioned), unwanted pregnancy (mentioned), parental abuse (implied), terminal illness (mentioned), body control, manipulation, home invasion

---

The bus station was little more than a sheltered row of benches and a phone booth on the side of the road. Not much farther away was a weathered billboard.

WELCOME TO GREENSEA, it declared.

Betsy breathed in chilly, sea-salted air.

She was home.

The last leg of their journey would be quiet and uneventful. Dark circles hung under the trio’s eyes, filthy clothes weighing them down as they dragged their tired, aching bodies through Greensea.

On East Wood Street stood rows of identical, aged homes on either side of a dead end road hugged by woods. They came to a stop at the house on the very end. On the sagging porch, a welcome mat and two pairs of boots: one for an adult, the other for a child. The cheery, multi-colored lights of a Christmas tree glittered in the window.

Betsy stared up at her childhood home with fresh- though weary- eyes.

618 East Wood Street was an heirloom, passed from her great-grandmother, to her grandfather, to her mother. A lengthy property record, spanning generations-worth of family. With that photo in hand and however many ears on the ground, the department had pieced it together.

She shifted uneasily at the thought, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling.

“Well! Here it is!” Betsy said. “Thanks, guys.”

Ankhanum smiled sadly. “I suppose now we go our separate ways?”

Her shoulders tensed.

“…Uh- I told my mom you’d be staying for a little while! If you wanna,” she said. She tugged at the crusted hem of his coat. “’Sides, we could all use a shower! I got pajamas you’d fit into.”

Clive opened his mouth to speak- and promptly closed it again. This was happening whether he liked it or not, and he no longer had the energy to argue.

Betsy ascended the groaning porch, and paused on spotting a tiny face peering out the front window at her. The door opened soon after, and Betsy’s face broke out into a wide grin as she was climbed and embraced, despite the pain that wracked her body. A child with a similar shock of red hair and freckled cheeks kicked the air behind her in excitement, burying her face into her mom’s shoulder in as big a hug as she could muster.

Then Annie Winters reared back, her nose wrinkling.

“Eww, mom, you smell weird!” she said.

Betsy burst out laughing and lowered Annie to the ground with a grunt. “I just get home and the first thing outta your mouth is that I stink?!”

Annie pushed up her glasses and looked out at the strangers accompanying her mom.

“Who are they?” Annie asked.

Ankhanum stepped forward with humbled amazement on his face.

“This one is Ankhanum,” he said, bowing.

“On-KAW-num?” she echoed.

“Close!” he said.

Clive’s silence preceded Ankhanum’s elbow in his ribs.

“Clive,” he said, rubbing at his side. “You are, little ‘Miss’?”

“I’m not a ‘Miss’- I’m Annie!”

From inside the house, a stern voice came: “Annabelle Winters, what have I told you about going out at night?!”

An elderly woman with freckled cheeks stumbled to the door, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Fran adjusted the bonnet that was askew on her head, tucking away a cloud of textured hair grayed with age.

After a moment of incredulous silence, she exclaimed, “Betsy?! I thought you said you’d be home t- to- Oh. My God.”

Fran drew closer to Betsy at the sight of the disheveled men accompanying her.

“Are those your friends?” she asked in a quiet, horrified voice.

“Yeah, those are my friends. Can we come in now? We’re freezin’ our buns off out here!”

“…You may,” Fran said, before gesturing firmly at the doormat, eyes never leaving the Ankhanum. “But NO boots or shoes inside my house!”

Ankhanum and Clive exchanged a glance, and left their blood-and-mud-caked boots at the door.

The interior of 618 East Wood Street was immaculate, every imaginable surface free of dust. A sleeper sofa and a loveseat took up the majority of the front room, the outline of a cubbyhole on the wall behind it, just underneath the stairs. In the corner nearest to the front window stood a china cabinet, the shelves of which showed off framed family photos and Fran’s finest dishes.

Once free of her mud-caked boots, Betsy stripped down to her sweater and long johns in short order.

The Ankhanum stood at the door awkwardly, unsure if they should do the same; Fran stared at them with such intensity her eyes were beginning to water, while she took inventory of every speck of dirt and stain set into their clothes.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Ankhanum said, mustering a smile in her direction.

Fran’s smile back was wooden.

“Of course,” she said. “Annie. Off to bed now.”

“But Gramma-!”

“To bed, Annie.”

Grumbling, Annie went up and out of sight. The sound of her bedroom door closing echoed down the stairs.

Fran turned on Betsy next.

“Beth. Come with me into the kitchen for a moment,” Fran said.

“A’ight,” Betsy said. She looked to the Ankhanum with a roll of her eyes. “You guys make yourselves at home. I’ll be back.”

They stepped forward-

“No!” Fran almost shouted.

And they both froze.

“You two, just- stay put, for now,” she said, holding her hands up.

She swiftly disappeared into the kitchen, Betsy limping after.

“Not very welcoming,” Clive whispered. “It’s not too late to leave.”

“We don’t make the best impression right now,” Ankhanum whispered back. “Look at this home. Betsy’s mother must work very hard to keep it so neat.”

Ankhanum set Betsy’s bag down, slid off his coat and carefully bundled his accessories inside it, setting it atop her discarded garments.

“…We shouldn’t stay longer than is necessary, but I do want a shower. I feel disgusting,” Clive said, hesitantly following suit.

“What’s the rush? I, for one, am ready for some downtime,” Ankhanum said.

Before Clive could say more, from above was a “Psst!”

Their eyes landed on Annie, sat at the top of the stairs with her chin cupped in her hands.

“Are you not supposed to be in bed?” Ankhanum asked.

“Gramma only made me go because she’s nervous,” she said.

“And you aren’t?” Clive asked. He smiled slyly. “We are strangers, after all.”

“Not really, ‘cause my mom isn’t,” Annie replied with a shrug. “How’d you guys meet her?”

Ankhanum’s face blanked at the question. He glanced to Clive.

“...That’s a long story that should wait until morning,” Clive said.

---

“How long are they staying? Where are we even going to put them?!” Fran asked.

“However long it takes them to get back on their feet,” Betsy replied tiredly. “There’s those old cots in the basement, yeah?”

“I already have our own mouths to feed! I can’t afford-“

Betsy thumped the counter with her palm. “Glad to be home, mom, good to see you, too!”

Fran went rigid. Silence followed. Betsy eventually let out a sigh.

“Sorry, mom. ‘M tired. Hurtin’,” she said. “I’ll start looking for another job tomorrow. I’ll take the boys along, see if they can’t find something, too.”

Fran looked her daughter over with softening eyes.

“…It can wait ‘til the weekend’s out,” she said. “Baby, I’m so, so happy, and relieved, that you’re home! I really am! I just- I have so much on my mind-”

Betsy gave her mother’s shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“I know. And I’m sorry I dropped all this on you out of the blue. Everything happened so quickly, and even I’m still tryin’ to get my head around it all. The boys are a little weird, but they’re not bad.”

Fran nodded. Her eyes drifted to the dark spots on Betsy’s long johns.

“What are all those stains?” Fran asked. “On their clothes, too-“

“We were field dressin’ deer out in the woods,” Betsy said. “Hard not to get dirty when you’re diggin’ around in a carcass, y’know?”

“Oh. Is that all?” Fran asked queasily.

Betsy pursed her lips in a tight smile. The steady throb of pain throughout her body was worsening, making it a struggle to stay upright. “Can I get settled in, or do you and I still gotta talk?”

“We’ll talk more. In the morning,” Fran said.

“Cool. Stay up a minute, I need to get my clothes outta your closet.”

When Betsy returned to the living room, the two were still as stone, in the same spot she’d left them in. She suppressed a smile.

“We got shower approval from the boss. You two go first; I gotta get some stuff for y’all to put on,” she said.

She started up the steps, where her eyes met Annie’s.

Betsy feigned a gasp.

“Did you pretend to go to bed?” she asked with sarcastic sternness.

Annie grinned mischievously. “Nnnoooo…”

She giggled shrilly as Betsy scooped her up.

Betsy opened the door to Annie’s room and dropped her into bed. The bedroom walls were covered in even more taped-up drawings than she remembered, of animals, bugs and scribbled ‘self-portraits’.

“But I don’t wanna go to sleep yet! You just got home!” Annie pouted.

Betsy ruffled Annie’s hair.

“C’mon, kid. You’re not missin’ out on anything. I’m goin’ to bed, too,” Betsy said. “I’ll still be here tomorrow.”

Annie nestled under the covers.

“You promise?” she asked.

Betsy laughed. “I promise.”

---

After their shower, Clive and Ankhanum entered the basement. Betsy was already down there, shaking out the dusty blankets over the cots.

“That was fast. You shower together, or somethin’?” she asked.

“Of course. Saves water!” Ankhanum replied.

He shook out his damp hair, flinging water that speckled Clive’s shoulder, earning him an irritated sigh. Of Betsy’s options, Ankhanum had slid on a plain t-shirt and shorts; red-crusted rings of punctures dotted his legs and arms. Clive opted for a striped nightgown that hung off him, revealing bruises on his collarbone.

Their wounds, uncomfortably fresh, gave Betsy pause.

“Sure. Appreciate that,” she mumbled.

Clive and Ankhanum surveyed the basement, lit by a bare bulb on a dangling chain. On the wall closest to the stairs were a duo of cots on either side of the washer and dryer. The remainder of the space was lined with shelves of preserved goods and boxes of supplies, their contents detailed at eye level.

“Seems your mother is ready for anything,” Clive said, eyeing a set of gas masks on the wall. “Is she well?”

“My dad was one of them kooky ‘prepper’ types- stuff like that rubs off,” Betsy said. “These cots are all we got unless you’re cool with sleeping bags. Annie’s got her own room, Mom’s got the master and I’m on the couch.”

“Any place to lay is better than none,” Ankhanum said, and, a smile evident in his voice, added, “Betsy hadn’t said anything about having a child. She’s charming.”

Her cheeks flushed. “Yeah, she’s a good kid. Last couple days weren’t exactly a good time to bring her up.”

Cheeks still burning, she nearly fled upstairs.

Ankhanum pulled the cord on the bulb and laid down for the first time in days, eyes slipping closed. Sleep was so near-

“This is why I did not want her getting involved with us,” Clive hissed from the other cot.

Ankhanum’s eyes fluttered open. He sighed through his nose. “Bit late for that.”

“Betsy and her family are not safe as long as we remain here. Sanderson came along. He could-“

“What good is he going to be?” Ankhanum asked, rolling over to face the other. “Sanderson smells blood and loses himself. What if the child scrapes a knee? Would she be safe in his hands? He lacks self control.”

“You lack it as well,” Clive sneered. “Your…affection for Betsy controls you.”

Ankhanum’s cot creaked. A fist hooked the fabric of Clive’s nightgown, hauling him up. Illuminated by a shaft of light coming from the frosted basement window, Ankhanum’s eyes were cold.

“You really think Betsy controls this one? Idiot. No one controls me,” he said.

Ankhanum pulled Clive closer.

“Not even you,” he hissed.

Clive fell back onto the cot and a heavy silence descended over them, only broken by the sound of their gnashing teeth until they succumbed to exhaustion.

---

Betsy slowly opened the bathroom door and cracked her eyes open.

But there was no bloodbath to be found.

The tiles were the same pristine cream she remembered, the only sign the Ankhanum were ever in there the heap of knotted black hair in the bin by the toilet. She made a mental note to bag it up on the way back downstairs; she didn’t need her mother screaming at the sight of it come morning.

A hot shower and near handful of pain relievers later, Betsy fell onto the pullout with her first hot meal in days.

It was only a TV dinner, comprised of lukewarm mac n’ cheese and a dry brownie that’d be scarfed down in no time at all, but it still tasted like a luxury after days of chilled, thin meals.

She’d went with a long sleeved V-neck and her comfiest sweatpants, managing to cover most of the wounds she redressed. The other thing she wanted to avoid her mother seeing was how roughed up she’d gotten the last few days.

Finally alone, Betsy’s mind drifted to the ‘God Eaters’ lying below, to the literal bugs that’d made a home of Norman Nguyen’s head, to the blood oozing down the faces of the researchers that’d chased her across the snow covered yard up at camp.

Even miles and hours away from there, she felt like she had when she’d faced down the Ankhanum, possessed scientists at her back.

Overwhelmed.

Trapped.

Her family wasn’t safer with her here. But had they been any safer beforehand, with the department knowing where to find them?

Betsy stared into the dark, finding she didn’t have an answer.

She’d try her hardest to stay awake, try to be vigilant of any noise or movement, whether above or below- but she’d only manage another hour before she drifted off into the deepest sleep she’d had in days.

---

Ankhanum awoke to the smell of food.

Nostrils flaring, he peered over at the other cot and found it empty. With a great, jaw-crackling yawn, he lazily made his way up the stairs.

Eggs sizzled away on the stovetop and packages of sausage lined the counter. Manning the frying pan, Betsy glanced over to an already salivating Ankhanum.

“Just in time, sleepyhead!” she said.

He wiped at his mouth eagerly. “Quite a spread this will be!”

“I make big meals! Dad used to say the way someone’s heart is through their stomach.”

“That is the path of least resistance,” Clive chimed in with a sagely nod. He was on toast duty, carefully monitoring the crisp of each slice.

Betsy snorted.

“It’s not meant to be weird and violent, ya ding-dong!” she said.

“’Weird violence’ is not what I was implying,” he retorted.

“Suuure.”

She put Ankhanum on sausages, and they finished making breakfast together, shoulder-to-shoulder.

Annie and Fran were already seated at the table, where Betsy would soon join them. Betsy closed her eyes and hummed in a pleased manner as she dug into her eggs and toast. Ankhanum and Clive took their meals to the loveseat adjacent to the pullout, devouring the contents of their piled-high plates with wild abandon.

In mere minutes, almost every plate was empty and being taken back into the kitchen for seconds, the exception being Fran’s; she only picked at her breakfast, glancing anxiously at the two men.

“I don’t believe I caught your names last night!” she eventually said with a clap of her hands.

The two paused mid-chew, morsels of food dropping back onto their plates.

“Clive.”

“Ankhanum!”

“And what did you two do at the camp?” Fran asked.

They stared at her blankly.

Her nervous smile grew more so as she looked to Betsy.

“Didn’t you say they were coworkers of yours?” Fran whispered.

Betsy bit a little too hard on a forkful of eggs, her lower teeth singing with pain.

“Uh-” she started.

“We did not work at the camp, we only met her there,” Ankhanum said.

Fran let out a tiny gasp.

“Oh- d-did you hear me just now? I’m sorry-“

“We were out hunting and ended up getting chased into their camp by a bear,” Clive gently offered. “Thankfully, Betsy killed it before it killed us. A few days later, my- ‘cousin’ and I saw smoke out that way.”

“Y-yeah!” Betsy exclaimed. “One of the guys at camp went nuts and wrecked our generator. Then that fire broke out-”

Annie screamed, startling everyone in earshot.

Betsy’s bag had slumped, contents spilling onto the floor as Sanderson finally slipped out of it. He stretched his feline form out with a yawn, tail sticking straight into the air.

“KITTY!” Annie cried joyfully, abandoning her breakfast.

Sanderson’s fur stood on end and he made a mad dash for the stairs, Annie hot on his heels.

"Whoa, whoa, kid!” Betsy said, getting up from her seat. "He- uh- Herbert doesn't like pets!"

Surprise dawned on Fran’s face.

“Herbert?” she echoed.

Clive snorted quietly.

Betsy shot him a pursed-lipped glare.

But Fran would get no such acknowledgment, as Betsy soon disappeared up the stairs, leaving her mother alone with the Ankhanum. A fervent wet noise made the elderly woman grimace; Ankhanum was licking his plate clean of yolk. His eyes met hers and he grinned sheepishly. She averted her eyes to the ceiling.

There was much thumping and laughter going on upstairs.

"…You can stay for a little while," Fran finally said.

“Fantastic! Thank you, Miss Betsy’s mother!” Ankhanum said.

"Yes, fantastic," Clive muttered, resisting elbowing his other half.

Fran laughed lightly.

“Call me Miss Fran,” she said.

---

A ‘little while’ would stretch into a long while, and Clive soon found himself right at home working at a dusty bookstore. The owner was a little old woman who smoked like a chimney; and inevitably, he’d pick up the habit himself.

…Again.

This wasn’t his first run-in with addiction.

But that was neither here, nor there in his mind. No, most disconcerting to him was- after a morning cigarette, he’d reenter the Winters home, passing by Betsy snoring away on the pullout, and then Annie, as she sat down for breakfast.

His nose wrinkled at a powerful, positively sickening smell. He peered judgmentally into Annie’s breakfast bowl: colorful loops of grain, floating in milk.

“What on Earth are you eating?” he asked.

“Cereal,” Annie said through a mouthful.

“Smells…very sweet. Too much sugar is bad for you, you know.”

She rose a brow at him, her own nose wrinkling. “Smoking’s bad for you, too.”

In spite of himself, he smirked.

“Fair enough,” he said. “How about this- if your mom is asleep when you get up for school tomorrow, then I will make you something you may like better.”

And so he did.

He’d never intended it to become a routine any more than smoking a rekindled habit. But days later, he was still making Annie breakfast. The smell of it even roused Betsy one morning; according to her, he made a mean baked oatmeal.

Betsy wasn’t traditionally a morning person, and in light of that, to the delight of her old manager, she’d resumed cooking at Tish’s Diner in the evenings. It took considerably more convincing to wriggle Ankhanum in alongside her to bus tables.

Betsy’s late rise had its benefits. She was able to walk Annie home from school. But today, while she was out to do exactly that, she saw Ankhanum turn the corner, Annie chatting away happily at his side.

Betsy’s heart jumped into her throat and she raced over.

But there wasn’t a scratch on Annie, nor a hair out of place.

Betsy glanced to Ankhanum. The cool indifference on his face quickly broke into a wide grin. Betsy let out an awkward chuckle and ruffled Annie’s hair.

“…Wow, look at you movin’ up in the world! You got a bodyguard now, kid?” she asked.

Annie nodded enthusiastically. “Anni came to get me from school today!”

Betsy bit back a snort, the ice in her blood beginning to thaw.

“He’s Annie too, huh?”

“Yep, he’s Anni, too. Clive said so!”

Ankhanum rolled his eyes, but his grin never faltered. When Annie went inside the house, he cocked his head at Betsy.

“Still afraid of this one? I have no reason to harm her,” he said.

She crossed her arms with a frown. “I have good reason to be cautious. Next time, you lemme know first. Got it?”

His eyes softened, smile growing mischievous.

“Naturally,” he said.

Betsy pursed her lips against a smile. “…What’s the ‘Anni’ thing about, anyway?” she asked.

“A nickname! Means ‘Little Red’. But it is hardly affectionate. Insinuates inexperience,” he said. “But, it amuses her that I am ‘Annie’, too. I will let it slide, for her.”

Betsy suppressed a laugh. “She looked real excited, hangin’ out with you. Didn’t take either of you for being good with kids.”

“These ones have partaken in the time-honored human tradition of child-rearing before,” he said with a wave of his hand, heading into the house himself and leaving Betsy mystified- yet intrigued.

The two weren’t slouches, that was certain; not only did they work (if under the table), they helped Fran maintain the bordering-on neurotic cleanliness of the house. In fact, on her way out to work, Betsy would catch her mother nodding off on the loveseat with a book in hand. The house was absent of its now usual laughter- Annie’s room was dark, and the boys had gone out earlier that evening.

Betsy leaned an arm against the back of the loveseat with a grin.

“Boo!” she whispered.

Fran startled from her doze with a gasp. She looked back at Betsy with wide eyes. She let out a sigh, rubbing at her temples.

“Ugh- Beth, don’t scare me like that!” she said.

Betsy snickered and pat her mother’s shoulder apologetically.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said. Her eyes fell on the book next. “Wow, you have hobbies that aren’t cleaning ‘til you keel over?”

“Seems I do, now that I have more time on my hands. More than I know what to do with, really.”

Betsy took a seat on the edge of the pullout. “Yeah? What’s the verdict on the boys, then?”

“I’ll admit they’ve been helpful,” Fran said. “…They can stay for a little while longer, if that’s why you’re asking.”

Fran’s gaze drifted to the television. It was off, but a thought seemed to occur to her then.

“I even had the time to watch the news earlier,” she said. “They finally updated the story on your camp.”

Betsy nodded somberly. “Yeah. I finally saw it at work.”

When the TV at the diner wasn’t switched to sports, Betsy could caught the goings-on in the world. She’d found Martin Cuddy’s retelling of the deparment’s tall tale to be accurate; the generator blew up, starting a fire that swallowed the camp.

Eleven dead, eight survivors, one still missing.

Betsy’s eyes drifted to the kitchen table, under which ‘Herbert T. Cat’ was lounging. She summoned forth a single solitary snort of the nose.

“They still haven’t found Herbert, then. He and I got into a fight earlier that night,” she said. Then, louder: “Lots of things left unsaid. Absolutely tearin’ me up inside.”

Sanderson’s ears flattened at the venom in her voice. He threw her a wary glance.

Fran, on the other hand, looked about ready to cry.

“Oh, baby, you must be so worried about him. I know you and him were really good friends,” she said. “You even called the cat Herbert…Oh. How sweet…”

Betsy resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

In case her kid got to have a real cat someday, Sanderson very reluctantly agreed to a diet of kibble (on the condition he got the occasional table scrap).

All in all, ‘Herbert T. Cat’ was well provided for, even if he had to shit in a box.

…Anything had to be better than what would’ve awaited him at the department, if Norman’s implants were anything to go by.

She shivered at the thought.

“Hey, mom?” she asked.

“Yes, baby?”

“Maybe it’s about time to consider movin’ outta this dump?”

Fran dogeared the page she was on and closed the book with a clap. Aside from the teary residue at the corners of her eyes, her former weepiness had vanished.

“You’re gonna call my house a dump, right in front of me?” she asked. You know, this is gonna be your house one day, and I work hard to-“

“I know you do! I know it,” Betsy cut in. “But it’s gettin’ old. You’ve seen that porch- hell, you’ve felt the way it sags. It’s gonna get expensive to maintain. We can’t keep this place forever. Not only that, there’s not enough room for all of us.”

"There was plenty of room until you brought two men and a cat here!”

Betsy looked down at the very pullout she was sat on.

"You sure about that? I've been sleepin' on a couch for years now," she said flatly.

"Beth, do you realize how much money and planning moving is?!" Fran snapped. “First, we’d have to sell the house-”

“I know, I know. Just- listen to me. We need to get out of this house!”

“What on Earth for?!”

Betsy averted her eyes, running her hands up and down her arms, now pebbled with gooseflesh. Her mother was likely to think she was nuts for what was about to follow.

“Herbert, he, uh- he worked for this research lab, and they’re looking for the men I brought home with me. And me, too,” Betsy said. “They know we’re here. That you and Annie are here, too. I’m worried they might-“

Fran laughed, then, an awkward bark of a sound.

“Dear- you know I don’t like it when you make those kinds of jokes!” she said.

Betsy tensed at the abrupt coldness in her mother’s voice.

When their eyes met, Fran herself looked puzzled by it.

“Mom, I’m not joking-”

The front door swung open. Fran and Betsy yelped.

Ankhanum was hunched in the doorway.

“Apologies,” he mumbled. “It appears the young one forgot to lock the door!”

Clive skirted past him, into the warmth of the house- and at his side, was none other than Annie Winters. Fran and Betsy gasped in further simultaneous horror.

“Kid, I thought you were in bed!” Betsy cried.

“We were on our way back when we saw her sneak out,” Clive said.

Fran’s shoulders trembled with brimming upset. “Annabelle Winters, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times- do NOT go out at night! You could’ve gotten hurt!”

Annie’s eyes went straight to the floor.

“S-sorry, gramma-“

Ankhanum dropped a hefty bag of takeout on the pullout.

“We bought dinner!” he exclaimed.

The distraction drew Fran and Betsy’s attention long enough for Annie to escape up the stairs to her room. Betsy watched her ascend incredulously, before her eyes darted to her wristwatch. She jumped up from the couch, threw on her jacket and rifled through the takeout, wolfing down a handful of fries with impressive speed.

“That kid-! I’d give ‘er an earful if I didn’t have to run to work!” she grumbled, and then paused, licking the salt from her lips. “Mm. These are the diner’s fries. So good.”

Clive smiled mischievously at her.

“Of course! Nothing but the best for ‘our’ Betsy,” he crooned. “I’m certain you’ll be pleased to hear we didn’t even have to steal it this time!”

Fran shot Betsy a look of confusion.

Betsy pursed her lips.

“Inside joke,” she muttered.

---

Ankhanum stuffed his face into the bag of takeout yet again.

“Ahh, smells so good,” he sighed. “Betsy will be very pleased we didn’t steal for her this time.”

“Ah, but you stole snacks from the gas station earlier,” Clive corrected.

“...I may have done that. But I did not have to steal the food for Betsy.”

“Only because she split some cash with you,” Clive mumbled with a grin.

Ankhanum finally elbowed him. “Just let me have this, would you?”

They’d share a good-natured cackle, continuing their stroll to the end of East Wood Street- until something on the Winters’ porch caught their eye. A small figure, darting into the woods that bordered the house.

The two followed.

The path was well traveled and lead to a clearing, the center of which was dominated by a drooping tree with a tire swing dangling from its thickest branch. There, the figure stood at the base of the tree, shining a flashlight around the perimeter.

Teeth bared, Clive leaned his weight on a twig until it broke underfoot. A gasp from the figure, before running deeper into the woods.

Clive bolted ahead, nails raking a tree as he swung ahead of them. They collided with his knees and nearly fell, until his hand took hold of theirs, leaving them hanging halfway off the ground. The beam of a flashlight filled his vision.

“What the- Clive?!” Annie exclaimed.

He squinted down at her.

“Annie. What are you doing out here?”

Once she steadied herself on her feet, he released her. She frowned up at him.

“I’m lookin’ for something,” she mumbled.

“What for?!” Ankhanum asked eagerly from behind.

“You’re here too?! Augh, I’m surrounded!” she said with exasperation. “…I’m, um, lookin’ for fireflies.”

“Fireflies?” Ankhanum echoed.

“Well- I dunno for sure if they’re fireflies, ‘cause I don’t usually see ‘em ‘til summer,” she said. “But I’ve been hearin’ buzzing and seein’ funny lights at night, out here an’ in the house! I saw ‘em in Gramma’s bedroom last night, but when I checked today, I didn’t find anything.”

Ankhanum knelt to her height.

“A child should not be seeking anything in the woods alone, especially not at night,” he said. “What if you were to run into creatures with big teeth?!”

Clive snickered and chimed in: “Or bleeding eyeballsss!”

“Or flesh-ripping claaaawsss,” Ankhanum growled.

Hooking the joints of his fingers, he shone the flashlight under his chin and cackled deeply. Annie groaned.

“Ugh, you’re so corny!” she said.

After a hearty chuckle, Clive asked, “How’d you manage to sneak out of the house without getting caught? Your grandmother’s been home all day, hasn’t she?”

Annie puffed her chest out proudly. “Oh, it was easy-peasy! I told mom I was goin’ to bed before she got in the shower, and when I went downstairs, Gramma was takin’ a nap on the couch!”

Ankhanum let out another cackle.

“Saw your opportunity and took it, I see,” he said.

Annie would be returned home no worse for wear beyond an impending scolding. Following Betsy’s grumbling departure for work, Fran slid her share of the takeout into the fridge without even looking at the contents.

"Not eating tonight, Miss Fran?” Clive asked.

Fran turned- and nearly jumped out of her skin. He loomed close behind, regarding her coolly. She made for the doorway to the living room, eyes trained on them all the while. Theirs never left hers.

“I don’t have much of an appetite right now,” she said. “I already had a headache today, on top of tonight’s frights.”

“Apologies,” he said, cocking his head at her. “Does Annie do this often?”

Fran let out a sigh. “She’s been flighty since she was old enough to walk. Scares me to death, honestly…”

She made her way upstairs, leaving the two alone. They eyed the fridge, plastered with Annie’s drawings, depicting a range of animals and insects in a rainbow of colors.

“…You don’t suppose Annie was talking about those bugs, do you?” Clive asked quietly. “Surely the department hasn’t discovered our whereabouts so quickly.”

“You know full well who we’re dealing with. They have their ways,” Ankhanum said. “Best to keep eye on Annie either way.”

---

“-working! Oh, yes! I knew even a bout with the washer wouldn't do you in, my darling!”

[Sanderson clears his throat.]

“Recording begins! It’s been some weeks since I’ve had the time- or the thumbs, for that matter- to make an entry. After I checked in last, I had to narrowly escape Dr. Barnes for a second time. Picking up where I left off. Ahem. I have become something else, something extraordinary! Ankhanum! They are, among other things, remarkable shapeshifters. I traversed the wintry woods as Lynx canadensis, climbing trees, looking out from on high! …Though circumstances have necessitated my becoming Felis catus instead. For a number of reasons. Not least of which is I have no clothes of my own. Betsy found me down here the other day, naked as the day I was born. Humiliating.”

[Sanderson imitates Betsy.]

“’Herbert! I’m tired of lookin’ at your furry asscrack! Put some clothes on!’”

[He pauses.]

“Her pajamas are plenty big enough for me, at least. Which reminds me- how big Annie’s gotten! Hard to believe it’s been seven years since- Ah. Focus, Sanderson. Focus!”

[The sound of Sanderson smacking his own cheeks.]

“…Er. Where was I? Ah, yes. Shapeshifting. Now, the two that followed Betsy home are indistinguishable from any other human. The one who incited Reeves’ attack on me had the audacity to call himself Clive; the other only calls himself Ankhanum. At least Clive is a name, much as I’d love to give him a slap for it. But as seamless as their transformation is, I have to wonder: why they didn’t take human shapes to begin with? Was it a test, to see who among us would empathize with the ‘inhuman human’, locked in a cage?

[Sanderson chuckles dryly.]

“Betsy, naturally. She’s never been the sort to take an injustice sitting down.” “The Ankhanum have spread far and wide, it seems. We encountered an agent of Eleanor’s in Iron Falls, who, like myself, is a human who was- infected? Hmm. Yes, I suppose ‘infected’ is an apt descriptor. Him, by wound. I, by consumption. “Does the vector of transmission have any bearing on behavior? Dr. Barnes was exposed the same way I was and now she has a body count. A-as do I, but, well, they were closer to manslaughter, really!”

[Sanderson clears his throat again.]

“At least, in Reeves’ case… “Milo really was a nice young man. But- if I’m being honest with myself…I’d have mauled anyone who came into the lab at that moment. He just so happened to be the winner of the worst lottery in history. “God help me. Though, I believe now my God is Ankhanum. ”And all He would have done is ensure I wait for the most opportune time to eat Milo’s corpse.”

[Sanderson is silent until he ends the recording.]

---

On a late summer’s eve in 1989, Betsy Winters was sitting in Herbert Sanderson’s vintage convertible when she told him she was pregnant, tears streaking down her face.

“I don’t even know what I’m gonna do, Herbert. I’m between jobs right now- and- fuck, man!” she said.

“Oh, Betsy,” he whispered. “And the father-?”

“Ditched me. I- I think I want an abortion. Could you-“

She fell silent, though her lips trembled.

“Fuck. I need some time to think on it. I-if I do. Would you come with me?”

He held his breath. And nodded.

“I believe I can do that,” he said. “You just give me the word.”

Months later, Betsy would ring him up on a fall afternoon.

“Actually, I’m gonna have the baby,” she said. “I, uh, got in touch with my mom.”

Sanderson nearly dropped the handset in surprise.

“What? You haven’t talked to her in ages-”

“Yeah, yeah. I know. But when I told her, she was…weirdly ecstatic. Said I could move back in, and- I think I kinda need that right now.”

Sanderson was quiet for a moment. “In that case, I wish you the best of luck. You give me a ring if you need anything, y’hear?”

A week before Annabelle Winters’ first birthday, she would.

“’Annabelle’?” Sanderson echoed, nose wrinkling. “Doesn’t seem your style.”

“Mom insisted on naming her that, after my great-grandma,” she said. “I’ve taken to callin’ her ‘Annie’ myself. Or just ‘kid’.”

She bounced Annie in her arms, looking out the front window with a wry smile.

“Mom’s crazy about her. If she didn’t have to work today, she’d be the one holdin’ Annie right now. Honestly, if I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect she wanted me to have her just so she could get a second shot at playin’ mom.”

Betsy frowned then.

“…Sometimes I think it was a mistake, comin’ back here.”

Sanderson fidgeted uncomfortably.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Actually, while I’m here- I have a favor I’d like to ask of you. You’ll be compensated for your time and expertise, of course…”

She tilted her head.

“Go on,” she said.

While Annie smeared cake on the wildlife books Sanderson gifted her for the occasion, he’d offer Betsy the job where, seven years later, she’d shoot the bear that chased Dr. Mina Barnes up to the west gate.

---

On New Year’s Eve, Betsy handed Annie a long, gift-wrapped package. The child’s eyes lit up, though she looked to her mother curiously.

“Isn’t Christmas already over?!” she said.

Betsy grinned sheepishly.

“Yeah, it is,” she said. “But, I needed a little more time to get you somethin’. Better late than never, right? Now, c’mon, kid! Open it up! The suspense is killin’ me!”

Annie shredded the wrapping with no further hesitation. She freed her gift from the box and held it up with a triumphant squeal: a BB gun.

"Heh, that’s from me and the boys!" Betsy said, gesturing to Ankhanum and Clive on the loveseat, both grinning themselves.

Fran, however, looked on wearily.

"Beth, did you really have to get her such an awful thing?" she asked. “I don’t think you should be encouraging that…”

"Oh, come on,” Betsy said. “She’s been asking for a BB gun for years now. She's big enough!"

“She doesn’t need a gun, just because you have one.”

Betsy crossed her arms.

“It’s just a toy, mom,” she said. “I’ll show her how to use it so she’s not shootin’ anybody’s eye out, yeah?”

Fran sighed through her nose, but she’d relent without further argument. Betsy and Annie were soon in the backyard, firing away at empty soda cans.

“You can get closer if you need to,” Betsy said. “Hold it like this-”

PING.

A can fell into the snow. Annie squealed, hopping up and down.

Betsy beamed with pride. “Hey, good job, kid!”

Annie grinned widely.

“As good as you?!” she asked.

Betsy laughed and ruffled her hair affectionately.

“You wanna be as good as me?! You got a lot of practicin’ to do, in that case!”

They’d stay out there for some time, the popping of firecrackers in the distance adding to the evening’s excitement. Once they couldn’t feel their cheeks, they’d finally go inside for hot cocoa and marshmallows.

Over their mugs, Annie would declare: “I’m gonna stay up all night!”

And though she made a valiant effort to do just that, she’d throw in the towel around 11pm, at which point Betsy carried her and the BB gun upstairs. She tucked Annie into bed and smiled to herself.

Even better, Fran already retired for the night some hours ago.

Time for a little fun.

She headed back downstairs and broke out the alcohol.

Under the Christmas tree Fran refused to take down ‘til New Year’s Day passed, a feline Sanderson sprawled out, belly full of chicken. Clive curled up on the loveseat with a plate of cheeses, on a third vodka tonic in short order. Ankhanum lounged on the pullout, sipping at a Bloody Mary.

Betsy flopped down next to him, shot glass in hand, and turned on the news. All around the world, crowds counted down. 1999 was barreling in whether they liked it or not.

Newscasters seemed to smile cheekily through the TV screen. Just under those expensive smiles, emblazoned in the TV’s plastic molding: HC.

Betsy fidgeted uncomfortably.

Tonight’s broadcast, brought to you by Hassen Communications.

Everything she’d been trying to ignore after her mother brushed her off came rushing back.

She took a shot.

And another.

After she’d downed enough liquid courage, she’d finally ask a question that’d been on her mind for weeks.

"What's it mean that you're ‘God eaters’?”

Clive and Ankhanum looked to her curiously. Cheeks growing hot, she downed another shot before she could back out.

“We talkin’ the Christian God, the Twelve Olympians, somethin’ else entirely- what's the deal here?”

Clive scoffed, taking a swig of his tonic.

"I find whether they're worthy of divinity to be debatable,” he said. “But the ‘Gods’ we mean are immortal- or were, at least, until we came into existence.”

"Yeah? What's so special about you?"

He smirked. "Why, we were explicitly designed to kill them!”

His tone was downright giddy, enough to take Betsy aback.

“Kill them?” she echoed.

Ankhanum nodded, licked his lips and began a grand oration: “These ones were born in the corpse of our maker, once an immortal themself. Their exoskeleton mutated, became our armor- and we called ourself Ankhanum. Many fell to us in the sea of stars.”

Betsy stared at the ceiling in a tipsy haze.

"How'd you get here, then?" she asked.

“We were torn apart and abandoned here by ‘our people’,” Ankhanum continued. “Then life bloomed on Earth. We’d grow alongside- and inside- living things. We have been many things, Betsy! Men, plants, animals-”

"I liked being a crow," Clive interrupted with a burp, finishing off his drink.

Betsy was quiet for a time.

“Why’d your maker kill their people?” she asked.

Ankhanum’s grandiosity waned. “…We do not know. They were already dead by the time we were conscious.”

“Okay. Next question, then,” she said. “You two aren’t really cousins, are you?”

Clive grunted in disgust.

"We do not have a familial connection,” he said curtly. “I only added that detail to make our story more believable to your mother. Unfortunately, that one and I are one and the same. Mitosis on a larger scale, if you will.”

"Yeah? Why'd you divide?"

“Why does anyone? A disagreement! Namely, over how to get out of that cage!”

Clive stood unsteadily, before dropping his weight onto the arm of the couch. It groaned beneath him as he loomed over Betsy, his alcohol laden breath stinging her eyes.

“My first plan,” he slurred, “Was to rip off your arm when you reached through that hatch, squeeze my way into your body and wear you like a jacket! But that bleeding heart sitting next to you felt that’d be a little extreme-!”

“BECAUSE Betsy was kind to us!” Ankhanum added hastily, a heat curdling his tone. “You gave us an offering, and we came to like you! That is why this one spoke-”

Clive glared over Betsy’s head at him.

“Oh, please, you only speak to manipulate!” Clive spat. “Throw ourselves an exaggerated pity party so she’d feel BAD for us- and she was actually stupid enough to let us out!”

And then, he cackled.

Betsy’s knuckles paled from the force of her grip on the bottle of vodka.

“I almost died that night. More than a few times, actually,” she said. “That still make it funny to you?”

He bared sharpening teeth in a mockery of a smile.

“It’s hilarious how foolish you are, getting involved with us when you don’t understand what WE are!” he spat, face reddening. “We could eat you and yours at any time! Pick our teeth with the bones of that little one of yours-”

There was a crash as the bottle shattered against the side of his head.

Sanderson jolted out of his doze at the sound, rolling onto his stomach. Alcohol ran down Clive’s twitching cheek, red rings expanding behind his iris. A bloody shard of bone jut from his head; a last minute adjustment of his anatomy to mitigate the blow. Betsy stared at the jagged remains of the bottle in shock before gesturing at him with them.

“I know you don’t mean that, ‘cause you’ve had plenty of opportunities,” she said quietly. “But don’t you ever fuckin’ threaten my kid again.”

His silence dragged on. Her lips trembled.

“Maybe what I did- what I’m doing, is stupid to you,” she continued. “But I did it because it was the right thing to do, to me. And even after all that shit you just said- I don’t take it back! But I gotta say it: you laughing at me for it fucking sucks.”

She pushed past him. She slid on her jacket and went outside, the front door slamming behind her. Clive’s shoulders slumped.

Ankhanum eyed his other half indifferently, still sipping at his one and only Bloody Mary. “You deserved that.”

“I did,” Clive said.

“What are you trying to do? Piss her off until she forces us out?”

Clive looked away.

“It would be better that way,” he said.

"I will go smooth things over with her. Apologize to her when we return," Ankhanum said.

The door slammed once again on his way out. Clive dropped back onto the loveseat. His smoldering red-ringed eyes met Sanderson’s.

“What are you looking at?!” Clive growled.

Sanderson lowered his head in a hurry, ears flattening.

---

Betsy sat on the porch steps, looking out at the sky. In the distance was the intermittent booming and colorful sparkles of local fireworks. When the front door opened behind her, she rubbed brimming tears out of her eyes and sniffed in hard.

“Betsy? Are you all right?” Ankhanum asked.

“Risking my life for you two,” she said without looking at him. “The hell was I thinking.”

He sat down next to her.

“This one saw the bite on your arm that night," he said. "What else happened?"

"…Lotta close calls," she said, and recounted that night: her confrontations with Sanderson, ending in his death twice over, nearly her own. When she spoke of Milo Gaskins, compacted under that mattress, face contorted into a silent scream in death, she shuddered.

"Betsy got a taste of these ones and released us anyway?" he asked. Teasingly, he added: “Perhaps Clive has a point in saying it was unwise?”

She elbowed him hard enough that he grunted.

“When you put it that way, guess it is kinda stupid,” she said, smiling anyway.

“This one is stupid, too,” he said with an exaggerated sigh. “I could not think of a way to rob the pizza place ‘non-violently’, so I went with the next best thing; I pulled Clive’s arms off and told him to turn them into giant spiders. You know. To alarm the staff just long enough to steal a pizza.”

Betsy was quiet for a moment before she snorted.

"That’s how you guys got a hold of it?! Ha, yeah, that is pretty stupid,” she said, wiping tears off her cheeks. "Yeah. I dunno. I'd rather help someone who might not really need it or appreciate it than get all jaded and not help anyone. 'Cause one day, there's gonna be someone who does need it."

"But you did help us,” he said. “I cannot deny that I feel betrayed by people, as Clive does; it is as he says, that we are one and the same. But your determination to help us meant a lot to me.”

He moved closer to her.

“You mean a lot to me,” he said.

Her cheeks grew warm.

"Better watch it, Buddy,” she said, looking away. “You’re gonna start makin’ me think you’re hitting on me.”

"This one has been," he said plainly.

She glanced at him and scoffed.

"Oh, get outta here. Be serious!”

“I am serious.”

Ankhanum held his hands out to her. Betsy looked at down them, cheeks warmer still. Gently, she placed her hands in his; with her fingertips on his wrists, she could feel his pulse.

"I- uh- need some time to think on this, on, uh- us," she said.

"This one understands," he said. “In the meantime, shall we go back inside?”

“Ah, y-yeah, my buns are gonna fall off if I sit out here mopin’ much longer!”

Betsy let him help her to her feet.

Immediately after opening the door, her eyes met Clive’s- and watered at the overpowering smell of alcohol. He was curled back up on the loveseat, squeezing vodka out of his hair with a blood blotted towel. The floor was already free of glass, carefully layered with rags to soak up the liquid.

After several minutes of this drunken staring contest, Betsy finally asked, “Anything you’d like to say to me?”

“I do,” Clive replied curtly. “It’s only a matter of time until the department finds out where we are, and as long as these ones remain here, you and your family are in danger.”

Betsy rubbed the back of her neck.

“They already know,” she said. “Norman had a photo of the house on him, with the address on the back.”

Clive glowered at her.

“And you didn’t tell us this why?” he asked, voice rising.

“When were you gonna tell me that cat was Herbert, instead of actin’ all ignorant about it when you ‘found’ his recorder?!” she retorted.

Ankhanum eased himself into the space between Betsy and Clive.

“Come now. No more arguing. We do not want to wake Annie or Miss Fran,” he said.

At that, the tension left their bodies. Betsy slung her jacket over its designated hook and dropped heavily enough onto the pullout that the springs groaned.

“Why you are celebrating festivities instead of considering your options is beyond me,” Clive mumbled.

Betsy’s eye twitched.

“Hey, I’m still allowed to enjoy things before shit hits the fan!” she snapped.

She sat back and crossed her arms.

“...’Sides, I tried talkin’ to mom about moving and why and she thought I was just messin’ with her,” she said.

“Is leaving all behind an option?” Ankhanum asked. “Betsy could go on the run with us!”

She thought on it, before slowly shaking her head.

“Can’t go on the run with a kid and my mom in tow. Like hell I’d leave ‘em by themselves for long with the department knowing where to find ‘em, anyway,” she said, and breathed in shakily. “Don’t really wanna do that to my mom again, anyway.”

“Then this one would say we’re exactly where the department head wants us,” Ankhanum said, settling down on the pullout next to her.

Betsy smiled wryly.

“Looks like it,” she said. “So. I don’t have a plan. I don’t know what’s comin’ next, or when. If you guys wanna leave, I won’t stop you. But, I, uh. I actually feel safer with you around-”

“Then this one will stay!” Ankhanum said without missing a beat.

"If you’ll still have me, I’ll stay, as well,” Clive said quietly. “I wouldn't want any harm to come to Annie.”

“Awfully sweet of you to say after all that bullshit you spewed,” Betsy said.

Clive averted his eyes.

"I’m not heartless.”

"Could’ve fooled me!"

He sighed loudly.

"In that case- I apologize for my earlier outburst," he said. "But you are foolish for remaining involved with us."

Betsy rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah. Love ya, too," she said.

Ankhanum’s jaw dropped.

"You’ll tell that horrid, rude one you love him, yet I am relegated to 'Buddy'?" he said, and turned his nose up at her. "Okay, then, ‘Pardner’!"

"'Pardner'!? What the hell?!" she asked with a bewildered laugh.

A gentle squeak on the stairs got their attention. Fran peered down at them, frustration writ on her face.

"I know it’s New Year’s Eve, but could you three please keep it down?” she whispered. “I’ve had such a headache today, and it’s been nonstop yelling and doors slamming since I went to bed!”

Betsy glanced between Clive and Ankhanum. The three of them laughed as quietly as they could manage.

“Sorry ‘bout that, mom!” Betsy whispered back.

At the curious lightening of the mood, Sanderson rolled onto his back, ready to doze once again.

---

SANDERSON: “Recording begins. It took some unflattering begging, but I did manage to sit the Ankhanum down for an interview-”

ANKHANUM: “What is it we are meant to do?”

S: “I ask you questions, and you answer. Preferably truthfully.”

A: “Will we get paid for talking to you?”

S: “Well, no, but-”

[Sound of a chair scraping against the floor.]

S: “Wait, wait- I haven’t had the chance to interview you, or- just talk, with either of you yet! It’s of utmost importance that I-”

CLIVE: “That is because we have gone out of our way to not speak to you.”

[A door slams distantly.]

S: “Okay. All right. Plan B. I interview you separately. How about that?”

A: “You already are.”

S: “Separately. At DIFFERENT TIMES. Betsy asks you two a question and gets a- a MOSTLY straight answer, but you can't be bothered to give me the time of day?”

A: “That is because I like Betsy. But, for what it is worth, it is 2 o’ clock.”

S: “Now you're just mocking me.”

A: “You just noticed?”

S: “Ugh-”

[The recording abruptly ends. It picks up again, unannounced, seemingly mid-interview.]

S: “-that name about?”

A: “This one does not have a name yet.”

S: “Is Ankhanum not a name?”

A: “More of a job description-”

[The recording cuts out. It resumes mid-interview again.]

S: “-mortal lifeforms are unphased? Is it only the viral properties that affect us?”

A: “Why? I am unsure. Perhaps it is merely by design. We kill the immortal as they refuse to accept that all things must end. But the mortal embrace us, as they must death, sooner or later.”

S: “What about you? Are the Ankhanum immortal?”

A: “No. I will die one day. As will you. It may take longer for that day to come than it would for Betsy, but it will come.”

[The sound of fabric rustling.]

A: “Stop turning that fucking thing on and off. I can hear you pushing the buttons-”

[Recording ends.]

---

On a late summer’s eve in 1972, on a hill overlooking Greensea, Betsy Winters proposed to Herbert Sanderson with a purple plastic ring previously decorated with a spider. He started sputtering, face flushing bright red.

“What’s brought this on?!” he asked.

“You know damn well what,” she snapped, her face also flushing.

“This is so sudden! But- I- I’m not sure if I can…”

They stared at each other until horror dawned on her face.

“Wait, you don’t actually think- ya absolute genius! Come on. You know I’m funny about mushy stuff. You wanna get away from your mom, and I wanna get away from my folks. We don’t even have to get married for real. I just- I want out of there.”

He let out a relieved sigh, dabbing at his sweaty forehead.

“Oh, thank God! I was worried you actually had feelings for me. I didn’t wanna have to turn you down!”

“Don’t you worry,” she said. “I’ll never love you!”

He smiled at her.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise!”

She put her head down on her knees and stared out at the setting sun, cicadas crying all around them.

“Can’t stand goin’ home anymore. Mom and I, we’ve never been close, but she- she looks at me funny now. Barely talks to me. When she does, it’s to criticize me, or say I’m not keepin’ my room up good enough. …Dad’s real excited about our next trip out to the cabin. Sayin’ this time he’s gonna leave me alone out there. Make me find my way back on my own.”

She closed her eyes tightly.

“If I gotta be around those two any longer, I- I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Herbert nodded.

“It’s been bad at home for me, too,” was all he said.

Though his father’s death was ruled an accident no more complex than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the widowed Mrs. Sanderson told her son, “It should’a been you.”

He’d run from the house, struggling to hold back the tears she’d wrung out of him with her words.

He and Betsy would eventually make their escape in his late father’s convertible, on the night of their faux-elopement. Though they’d end their loveless marriage amiably in their mid-twenties, it provided them the cover to escape they’d been hoping for.

That night, while Sanderson wait outside for her-

“You’re leaving, aren’t you? With that boy.”

Betsy, her hand on the front doorknob, jolted. She met her mother’s teary eyes.

“…Yeah,” she replied.

Fran chewed at her lip.

“You don’t have to go, baby. I could get a restraining order. So your father can’t-”

“Now you wanna have a conversation? When I’m half out the door?” Betsy cut in.

Fran fell silent.

“S’not just about dad,” Betsy mumbled. “It’s you, too.”

“Beth, I had no idea what your father was doing! He never told me a thing, YOU never told me a thing- I- I…”

The words died on Fran’s lips. They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence.

A honk from outside made them jump.

“…I gotta go,” Betsy said.

Fran reached out to her- and her hand fell limp. She mustered a smile. “If you need me, baby, you give me a call, okay? You know me. I’ll always be here.”

Betsy’s lip trembled.

“Okay. Thanks.”

She left. Glanced back.

Closed the door.

---

All around her was dark. Tight. Hot. No way to tell if she was up or down, if there was any way out. The walls squirmed beneath her palms. The smell of blood clogged her nostrils.

Eaten.

She’d been eaten, she’d been eaten WHOLE-

Somewhere in that inky blackness, something groped at her. The shifting walls vibrated as a voice bubbled up below her.

“Betsy,” it gurgled. “BETSY.”

She tried to scream. Nothing came out, saliva (hers? That of whatever, whoever she was in?) thick in her throat. Her hands slipped, she began to plummet-

“BETSY.”

Daylight flooded her eyes when she sprang up on the pullout, drenched in sweat, panting like she’d run a marathon. Clive stood before her, an unlit cigarette in one hand and a book in the other, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Finally,” he said. “I’ve been calling your name for five minutes now. I was about to break out the pots and pans.”

“Huh- wh-what,” she sputtered.

He gestured to her alarm clock on the side table: it flashed repeatedly. 12:31 AM. She looked back to him blankly. He began to roll the cigarette between his fingers restlessly.

“Power outage,” he said simply. “Aren’t you going to be late for work?”

Betsy’s breath ceased. She nearly jumped off the pullout.

Not ten minutes later, she was as dressed and refreshed as she was going to get. She walked onto the porch, took a deep breath of fresh air- and coughed when the stinging heat of cigarette smoke hit her.

In her mom’s rocking chair next to the front door was Clive, smoking while he flipped through a book. With spring on the horizon, it was warmer today, and he’d donned a light sweater over a loose, flowing dress. Hastily, he tugged the ponytail his hair was pulled back in over a bruise on his neck.

Betsy waved away the smoke with irritation and checked her wristwatch.

Her jaw fell open.

She wasn’t due at the diner for another hour and a half.

With a furrowed brow, she stepped back into the house and took a quick inventory of the time. Battery-powered clock on the kitchen wall corroborated the time on her wristwatch (in here as well, on the table: a note from her mother about taking Annie to the park). But more damningly- the VCR clock also corroborated the time on her wristwatch.

She stepped back onto the porch and glared at Clive.

“You liar. You said there was a power outage, but the time on the VCR was fine! Did you unplug my alarm clock?!”

He nudged his new glasses up his nose and snubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray teetering precariously on the window sill. There was a sly smile curling his lips.

“Oh, drat,” he said, half-heartedly. “Guess I’ve been found out. Either way, looks like you’ve got time to kill. Would you like to go out with me?”

She squinted at him, half-confused, half-intrigued.

“Man, you couldn’t just ask me to hang out, like a normal person? You had to go and-“

“Yes or no, Betsy. I may have all day, but I don’t have the patience to wait that long.”

Her nostrils flared over her pursed-lipped frown, before she let out a sigh.

“Sure, whatever,” she muttered.

Her eyes drifted down to the sprawled open book in his arms. In the last months, he’d proved to be a notorious homebody, only leaving for work, but…

“You must really like to read. You’re always comin’ and goin’ to work with books,” she said.

He broke into a smile that took her aback in its similarity to the goofy smiles his other half would give her. All too eagerly, he thrust the book at her: a clinical textbook on rare diseases, featuring photographs and illustrated diagrams.

“I love reading- there’s so much literature I’ve missed out on over the years!” he gushed, his sudden enthusiasm not ceasing to amaze her. “What good fortune for me to end up employed at a bookstore, no? What books do you like, Betsy?”

Her cheeks flushed.

“I, uh, never got into reading as a hobby,” she said. “Not really into fiction, and I’m more of a hands-on learner.”

The disappointment that briefly clouded his face rapidly gave way to a chilly neutrality- at which point, she added, “But- hey, you never know! How about we head over to the bookstore? Maybe I’ll find something to read, after all.”

He cocked his head at her. And restrained a smile at that.

They soon entered Redfield’s Reads, manned almost single-handedly by the littlest old woman Betsy had ever seen, smoking the biggest cigar she’d ever seen.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Redfield,” Clive said.

She glanced up from the book she was reading with a raised brow.

“You aren’t scheduled to work today, Mr. Reeves,” she snapped. “I’ve told you before, you’re to work less than-”

“I’m not here to beg for more hours,” he said, and gestured to Betsy. “My friend is interested in finding some new reading material.”

The old woman nodded approvingly and returned to her book.

Once they were out of earshot, Betsy glared at him.

“Mr. ‘Reeves’, huh?” she asked.

“What of it? I don’t exactly have a surname.”

“Or documentation, for that matter. How the hell’d you manage to get hired?”

“How’d you manage to get Anni hired at the diner?”

Betsy sighed. It’d taken a lot of convincing, even with her positive repertoire with the owner, with the acceptance of a few caveats- he’d be paid under the table and receive no benefits. As the weather got nicer, Ankhanum supplemented his lack of hours by mowing lawns.

“Probably the same way you did, judgin’ by the way she bit your head off about working too much,” Betsy said.

They wandered further into the bookstore. Despite the place fitting neatly in a nook at the end of a strip of businesses, it was bigger on the inside and labyrinthine in layout, with a second floor to boot. Even so, Clive led her around effortlessly. The tour came to an end once Betsy spied a shelf labeled Comics, packed with classics, graphic novels and the like.

“Oh, shit!” She tugged out a row of comics and flipped through them. “She’s got Blade! Looks like there’s some more recent issues, too.”

“What is that about?” he asked.

“He’s a vampire hunter! A movie came out last year, but I didn’t get around to seein’ it ‘cause I was at camp. I should rent the tape sometime.”

He cocked his head at her.

“Vampires? I wouldn’t have taken you for being into that kind of thing, not being into fiction, and all.”

“Eh. I’m really not, but Blade is cool! Y’know what, I’ll get these. Annie’ll enjoy ‘em, too.”

“Ms. Redfield will be pleased to know we aren’t simply here to loiter,” he said, looking rather pleased himself.

She thumbed through the books before glancing sidelong at him.

“You guys are kinda like vampires, right?” she asked.

“Oh, Betsy. You never do disappoint with those questions of yours.”

He snorted when she whapped him with the rolled up comics.

“I’m bein’ serious here,” she said. “You shapeshift, you drink blood-”

“The latter is not with any regularity,” he corrected. “It is a difficult resource to attain without unnecessary harm when we are this size. Do not confuse me with Sanderson.”

“So you don’t need blood?” she asked, squinting.

“Certainly not,” he said. “You’ve seen for yourself we can eat ‘regular’ food just fine. If Anni’s love of your garlic bread is anything to go off of, that cliché is not applicable, either.”

“Ha- yeah, and you can go out durin’ the day, no problem. Guess you’re not really like vampires at all. There any downsides to being like you?”

The question gave him pause. He cocked his head.

“What do you mean?”

It was her turn to pause. Her cheeks flushed.

“Y’know, like- what’s it like being Ankhanum?” she mumbled.

He crossed his arms, brows knitting in befuddlement as he thought on the question.

“...I’m unsure how to answer. Being Ankhanum is all I’ve ever known, no matter what we’ve lived within,” he said. “I imagine it’d be rather difficult for you to explain to me what it’s like to be human.”

“Being human’s-” she started, before letting out a groan. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

They migrated to an array of non-fiction books. Clive squat in front of the shelf, checking the inside excerpts and backs of each book carefully. Despite this, a pile of his selections grew next to him. Betsy tilted her head enough to read their titles.

“You actually like reading medical text? Aren’t they boring?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “But I’m more interested in the biological than the medical. We do need to study things to accurately represent them, after all.”

She squat down and looked with him.

“Herbert had this one,” she said.

She pulled out a book titled The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. He skimmed through it.

“I see. He wasn’t terribly good at following any of it, was he?” he asked.

She bit back a laugh.

“Still holdin’ onto that grudge, I see,” she said.

“Be serious. Of course I am. He has neither apologized to these ones, nor has he made an effort to appease us with an offering. Are you not angry with him anymore? If Anni recounted to me correctly, you were rather seriously injured by him the night you freed us.”

“Oh, no, I’m still pissed at him! Hate him all you want, just keep it civil. Y’know. No drunken arguments. Deal?”

“Deal,” he said, smirking.

Once they were outside, he hefted their bag up, wasting no time in flipping through his purchases, even poking through Betsy’s comics.

“I will get a lot of entertainment from these. I must thank you for your time today,” he said.

Betsy smiled at him, and checked her wristwatch. “…Wow, we were in there for awhile. I gotta be at the diner pretty soon, if you wanna stop in with me?”

Clive flashed another uncharacteristic grin.

“Oh, Anni is there right now, isn’t he? Of course we can stop in. I would never refuse an opportunity to irritate him.”

Across the road sat the diner: Tish’s was already bustling with the dinner rush. They were greeted by Ankhanum as they entered. At the sight of Betsy, his face lit up- and immediately darkened at the sight of his other half. The grin on Clive’s face only widened. Ankhanum immediately turned his attention back to Betsy.

“Betsy is here early,” he said.

“Yeah. Stoppin’ by before my shift starts,” she said.

“Are there any tables open, good sir?” Clive asked.

“As it happens, there are,” Ankhanum said through grit teeth.

He lead them to a window seat that looked out over the harbor. Grey-green waves stretched all the way to the horizon.

“What can I get you to start?” Ankhanum asked.

“Just an iced tea for me!” Betsy said.

He beamed at her.

“Coming right up!” he said, and took off.

“And I’ll take a water!” Clive shouted after him.

He shook his head and began looking the menu over. Betsy, meanwhile, pursed her lips.

“Man, did you see that corny look he was giving me just now?” she asked.

“How could I possibly miss it,” he replied flatly. “He’s fond of you. If you are not fond of him in return, it’s best to tell him so.”

“It’s not that. I mean, he’s been really reliable…”

He rose a brow questioningly.

“You are providing us shelter and sustenance despite the foolishness of that. It only makes sense for us to do our share-”

Ankhanum returned with the drinks; Betsy’s was slid over with great care, the water all but slammed in front of Clive.

“Let me know when you’re ready to order,” Ankhanum said, customer service voice fading fast.

“I am,” Clive said, sliding the menu to him. “I’ll take the full-size seafood sub and a basket of fries. Should be enough for you and I to share. My treat, for our argument last night.”

Betsy glanced between them with raised brows. Ankhanum squinted almost suspiciously at the other but nodded. He looked to Betsy next.

“Are you having anything else?” he asked.

“Nah, I’m not eating- but thanks, Buddy!” she said.

“All right. I’ll send the order for the sub and fries to the kitchen!” he said.

Betsy sipped at her iced tea as he walked away.

“As I was sayin’,” she said. “I like him, too. I think. He’s a good cook, he’s cool- in a stupid way. Fun to be around. And he’s great with Annie! It’s the worst.”

Clive blinked slowly in confusion.

“…Is him being kind to her an undesirable trait?”

“Nah, it’s not that. I dunno, man, I’ve never been good with all that romance stuff,” she said. “He gets all mushy when he holds my hand. We cook together, we live together, we’re practically raisin’ a kid together. Shit is getting downright domestic. And I think he’s actually serious about it. About me. Ugh. It’d be easier if he only wanted to fuck.”

Clive snorted loudly into his drink, inhaling some of it in the process. He blew his nose into a napkin.

“A-apologies,” he coughed out. “I wasn’t expecting this turn in the conversation, but- do go on.”

She averted her eyes, but continue she did, in a near whisper, “It’s not like I go out of my way to have sex, but it’s…I dunno, it’s pretty non-committal to me. Kinda whatever. Always has been.”

He coughed into the crook of his elbow and nodded.

“Nothing wrong with that. I feel similarly,” he said.

Betsy let out a relieved puff of air, though she continued to rub the back of her neck self-consciously.

“This one time, I met a guy at a bar. Fireworks flew, we banged on his motorcycle. It sucked! Not a comfortable place to do it, man. Week later, he leaves town. That, and a ripped condom’s the story behind my Annie.”

She drummed her fingers on the tabletop in thought, eyeing him carefully.

“...Look, don’t say this to Annie. Ever. But I didn’t want kids. That’s a long story in and of itself, but- I was between jobs when I told my mom I was pregnant, and even though we hadn’t been in contact for years, she offered to put a roof back over my head, only twenty questions asked. And I thought, ‘Hell, this could work out. I’ll give this a chance! I’m gonna be everything to her my parents weren’t to me.’”

She clenched her fist, eyes shining with determination.

“And I love that kid. I do. I never want her to feel like I don’t, just because I hadn’t set out to have a kid. And y’know what? She’s a cool kid. I’m proud every day to be her mom.”

“A very cool kid,” he mused in agreement.

Betsy cleared her throat, swirling the ice cubes in her glass with the straw.

“Anyway- Buddy said you’ve had kids before?” she asked.

“We have, in the past,” he said, then chuckled. “Is ‘Buddy’ Anni’s permanent designation now?”

“Well, y’know, he’s my buddy! I know he’s into me, but I’m still tryin’ to wrap my head around that, and he’s been cool about it,” she said. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You’re part of the same guy, right? You like me, too?”

“You’re quite forward.”

She swirled the ice cubes faster, face flushing.

“I’m only asking, just to know! This isn’t me saying I’m interested,” she said.

He laced his fingers together and leaned forward. Though there was a smile on his face, it didn’t reach his eyes.

“If you must know, I’m undecided,” he said. “But I don’t dislike you.”

She took a long sip of her iced tea, trying to ignore the warmth in her face.

“Fine by me. Less complicated that way. I don’t dislike you, either,” she said.

Ankhanum slid the sub and fries in front of them and shoved his way into the seat next to Clive, pushing him into the window hard enough he nearly spilled what remained of his water, earning him an irritated sigh.

“Just clock out?” Betsy asked.

“Yeah,” Ankhanum mumbled. “This one is tiiiii-red!”

“Yeah, a 7-to-5’ll do that to ya. That’s my cue, then! See you two in the morning!” she said, chugging the rest of her tea. “And- Clive, make sure to give those comics right to Annie when you get home, okay? Don’t let my mom see ‘em!”

She took off in enough of a hurry it left Ankhanum reeling. He peered over his shoulder after her.

“Betsy ran off like she was on fire,” he said. “Did something happen?”

Clive shrugged nonchalantly, deciding to keep the details of this outing to himself. His and her little secret, for the time being.

---

“Recording begins. The last months have been curiously uneventful; Eleanor has yet to make a move, and I grow anxious to return to my roots. A housecat makes a great observer, less so a great researcher.”

[Sanderson mumbles unintelligibly for a moment.]

“Ahem. Anyway. It’s also been a few months since my last entry- I’d been keeping a journal after I managed to convince that ‘Clive’ to bring me paper to write on. What I didn’t know is that he was taking it out of Annie’s sketchbooks! Betsy was furious with me! Me! I wasn’t even the one doing it! Perhaps I should consider pivoting to video in the future- after all, anything can be condensed for consumption. Who’s to say the Ankhanum couldn’t be? I could narrate a documentary!”

[Sound of a door opening and the stairs being descended.]

“If the Ankhanum are as known to us as any other animal, why, think of the possibilities! I could be their ambassador. A man changed by the Ankhanum, bridging the gap between mankind and viralkind-”

"The hell are you yellin’ about down here?"

[A THUMP.]

"AUGH! Betsy?! You-”

[Recording ends.]

---

“-scared the daylights out of me!” Sanderson said, holding a hand to his chest. “What are you doing down here?!”

Betsy held up the basket in her arms with a raised brow.

“It’s laundry day,” she said.

Betsy nudged the mess on the floor aside with her foot and started loading the washer.

In the months Ankhanum and Clive lived here, the basement was looking more and more like a bedroom; a privacy screen divided Clive’s mattress and the washer, though his tumbling piles of books bled into Ankhanum’s hoard of clothes, discarded jewelry and makeup palettes. The cots they used to lay on were stashed on the shelves in favor of beaten mattresses they only fit on if they curled up; where they’d gotten them was still a mystery to her.

“You can’t be serious about makin’ a documentary about the Ankhanum,” Betsy said.

Sanderson squeezed his recorder defensively. “Why not? There are documentaries about all sorts of animals- even the extinct and unreal.”

“Can’t say I’d trust you to be in charge of makin’ it with how ready you were to keep ‘em caged.”

“You’re still on that?”

She clenched her jaw and closed the top of the washer with restrained force.

“Yeah, I’m ‘still on that’,” she said. “It was messed up and you know it.”

“What else was I to do? Our safety, that of the WHOLE camp, was my priority at the time. You and I both know better than to anthropomorphize a wild animal.”

“If we were still talkin’ about a bear, I’d agree with you, but you know damn well after livin’ with them that they’re not much different than us!”

“You didn’t know that then, any more than I did!”

He was about to storm off when she grabbed his arm.

“Not this time!” she spat. “Every chance I get to talk to you, you pussy out on me! Literally!”

“Maybe because I feel there’s nothing to talk about!”

“Well, there’s a hell of a lot I need to say to you!”

Betsy rubbed her arm as she stared at the floor. Faint scars still remained where he’d bit her months ago.

“I’m still pissed at you for a lot of reasons, even if you saved my ass in Iron Falls. But I’m glad you’re not locked up in a cage in some lab in God-knows-where. But I don’t take it back that I let those two out, either, even if I-” she trailed off, and gestured to his pointed teeth, his red-ringed eyes. “Even if I wish I could take back that this happened to you.”

He slowly pulled his arm free of her grip, and dabbed a furred hand against his damp forehead.

“W-well, you can’t. Obviously,” he said. “But, I don’t know that I’d have had it any other way!”

Their eyes met; hers, confused, his, intense as he embraced himself.

“I feel good. Better than ever, even! Being Ankhanum- there’s so much I can learn about them, and about myself,” he said. “Betsy, my friend, you handed me the chance to become my latest project on a silver platter!”

Her mouth fell open.

She struggled to find words.

Instead, she punched him.

Sanderson’s head rocked back, blood oozing sluggishly from his nostrils. He sniffled, wiping it from his nose. With a casual air that made her nauseous, he began licking the smear from his hand.

When he was finished, he said, “Well. That was new. May I ask what on Earth that was for?”

“You of all people should know that I-” she said, and paused, making a choked sound. “Every time I look at you, I see how bad I fucked up. And I can’t take it back, and it’s killing me! Everything that’s happened, that’s still happening. It’s my fault.”

He rubbed at his nose in silence for a moment.

“I asked you this then, and I ask you now,” he said softly. “How would you have known any of this would happen?”

He eyed the scar on her arm and nibbled at his lip.

“Neither of us can take it back. None of it,” he said.

He held out a clawed hand, covered in dense black fur.

“So, let’s deal with the scenario at hand, shall we? We’ve shoveled our way out of steaming piles of bullshit before.”

The washer rumbled to a stop. Betsy brushed his hand aside with a weak smile and resigned herself to resuming chores during the end of her world. The dryer was sent spinning.

“It’s a lot. All of this is. It’s a lot. Everything that’s happened, whatever the hell happened after I left-” she said, and eyed him warily.

He held his hands up defensively.

“Which I had nothing to do with, that I swear to you!” he said. “I came to and took off into the woods after you, post-haste!”

“Not that, ya absolute genius. Norman said something that’s been buggin’ me for months now. He said we were ‘Camp 12’. That mean anything to you?”

Sanderson thought on it, before shaking his head.

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said. “But my assumption would be that it means we weren’t the first.”

Betsy let out a dry laugh.

“Man. I hate thinkin’ there’s other saps like us caught up in this mess,” she said. “There’s a lot I didn’t get to ask Norman before he went on the run and I kinda regret it now. But, I hope he did it, y’know. I hope he outran her.”

Sanderson nodded, and sniffled, nose all too tender.

---

On a cold winter’s afternoon in 1969, Betsy Winters fired a gun for the first time.

What she hit was no bear, and she knew it.

She’d seen it from afar.

Crept closer.

Closer.

BOOM.

Herbert Sanderson soon sobbed over his father’s body while trying to cover his own bruised face and torso.

“I don’t care who he was! Not when I saw him beatin’ on you!” Betsy screamed.

Murphy Winters watched on. In Betsy’s gloved, shaking hands was his shotgun. His lips trembled before breaking into a proud smile.

“That’s my girl!” he said tearfully.

Betsy’s blood went ice cold on the spot.

In the end, she was her father’s daughter.

Murphy went on to claim the death an accident: a consequence of not wearing the appropriate blaze orange during the active hours of hunting season.

The two young eyewitnesses said nothing to contradict his claim.

The night after the incident, Betsy stood in her bedroom, hand on the knob of her barely open door.

“Murphy, I can’t believe you!” Fran cried, her voice carrying up the stairs.

“I did what I felt was right, Francine!” he snarled. “I don’t want the kid behind bars anymore than you do! They can’t prove she did it, and that boy of his ain’t sayin’ anything, either!”

“Didn’t say I wanted her behind bars. You know I can’t stand the cops. What I can’t believe is you’d let her use that awful thing in the first place! I knew you were hunting out there, but I didn’t think SHE was handling the guns-”

“Francine, I am teachin’ her how to defend herself!”

“From WHAT, Murphy?! Why’s she gotta learn how to fire a shotgun, of all things?!”

“Those things what live in the woods, Francine, you hear me?!”

“Oh, no, not THIS story again! I’ve had enough, of your fairytales, your- your MONSTERS, YOUR EXCUSES! Out. I want you OUT!”

Betsy closed her door in a panic. She rubbed the back of her neck, rubbed her arms, rubbed her face- no matter what she did, the phantom weight of that gun in her hands remained, the smell of gore still in her nostrils.

Despite her father’s absence in the home, it was like he’d never left. As cold and awkward as it ever was. Betsy had never been close to her mother.

She’d always been her father’s daughter, whether she’d liked it or not.

Betsy soon found out she went to the same school as Herbert Sanderson. He was a grade above her, and as he did most days, he sat in a corner by himself during lunch, picking at his food with disinterest.

One day she sat across from him.

“Do you hate me for what I did?” Betsy asked, tears oozing slowly down her face.

Herbert looked up with an intensity that startled her. The drying streaks of his own tears shined on his face, stubbly lips twitching.

“Th-the old bastard deserved it!”

Despite the venom in his voice, he began to sob. Betsy stared down at her lunch tray, finding she didn’t have much of an appetite either.

“Wish I could take it back,” she said.

“Well, you can’t,” he said, sniffling. “We just gotta- gotta deal with this heaping pile of bullshit now!”

Despite herself, she snorted. He snorted also.

They’d laugh together while crying.

---

Summer returned to Greensea at last.

Annie and Ankhanum ran ahead of Betsy on the boardwalk, visiting the booths set up to welcome the season; seashell jewelry, face painting, ice cream, fried foods, fishing gear, hand fans to keep cool with. Clive lingered a few steps behind, looking out at the waves, roiling in vivid shades of green. He stiffened when Betsy leaned into his field of view.

“Boo,” she said with a grin. “What’re ya starin’ at?”

“I see the town’s name is very literal,” he said.

"Yeah, we get algal blooms here in the warmer months. C’mon, you know those two. They’ll spend all their pocket money if we don’t talk some sense into ‘em.”

Annie and Ankhanum were trying on seashell necklaces when Betsy and Clive finally caught up. At first, Ankhanum only forked over enough for Annie to get one, thought twice, and grabbed one for himself.

"Hey, those are neat!" Betsy said.

"Aren't they cool!?" Annie exclaimed. "Anni said there's snails that eat critters livin' in shells by spittin' stomach juices at them!"

Ankhanum grinned sidelong at Betsy, making her laugh.

"Yeah, that is cool!" Betsy said. "I hate to cut our outing short, kid, but it’s time to go home! We got chores to finish up before dinner."

A groan of disappointment greeted the prospect, but it wouldn't last; once Betsy got her sat down with lunch and her sketchbooks, Annie only disengaged from drawing long enough to take a few bites of her tuna sandwich before diving right back into doodling.

Betsy headed out back, ready to tackle the yard work. Clive sat in a drooping plastic chair in the shade, legs spread wide, cooling himself with an ornately designed hand fan.

"Didn’t see you with that earlier. You steal it?" Betsy asked.

"I bought it from one of those little stalls at the boardwalk," he said. "Why would you suspect me of illicit activities?"

"Let's see," she said, counting his crimes on her fingers. "You robbed a pizza place, trespassed on private property, probably totaled a guy's car-"

"Have you heard of the disappearances around town lately?" Clive asked.

Betsy's breath cut out. "Huh?! What disappearances?!"

A cheeky smile tugged the corners of his lips.

“Just kidding,” he said.

She gaped at him and her hand flew by his head.

"I really am gonna smack you one of these days!" she said.

The back door clattered and Ankhanum, in a half-undone plaid button-up and denim shorts, stepped outside with the weed whacker, showing off enough skin she could see he was currently free of the usual wounds dating his conflicts with his other half. He'd scooped his hair back in a tie, uneven strands hanging around his face and neck, framing his newly acquired seashell necklace as the outfit's centerpiece. Betsy's cheeks warmed as she looked him up and down, before finally tearing her eyes away.

"Jeez. We're only doing yard work," she said, adjusting the straps of her tank top.

"What? It is too hot to wear more than I already am!" Ankhanum said.

Unbeknownst to either of them, Clive rolled his eyes.

They trimmed up the backyard and spread a large blanket across the grass, stringing lights across the eaves and putting out the boombox as a finishing touch.

“What is the occasion, Betsy?” Ankhanum asked.

"We’re eatin’ outside and tonight. We're gonna finally have that cheese pizza and corn on the cob!” she said.

Ankhanum immediately licked his lips.

“The very same pizza and corn Betsy would kill for?!” he asked.

She laughed.

“Man, you still remember I said that. Yeah, sure, Buddy,” she said. “The very same.”

“Mom?” came Annie’s voice. "Um- Gramma just came home from work, but I think something's wrong.”

Standing in the backdoor, Annie’s face was pinched with a concern that made her look strangely older. Wordlessly, Betsy hurried inside, leaving Clive and Ankhanum alone together, an uncomfortable quiet making itself at home in the backyard.

“Miss Fran has been looking unwell lately. I wonder if something finally happened,” Clive mumbled.

Ankhanum nodded solemnly and peered into the back window.

Fran sat at the kitchen table, head buried in her hands, purse on the floor rather than its usual spot on the tabletop. Betsy’s hand on her shoulder roused her from a daze.

"Mom, you okay?" Betsy asked.

"Mm, yes, of course!” Fran said, forcing a smile. "Got a little summer head cold, is all. I tell you, my ears have been popping all day!”

Annie peered over the table uncertainly. Fran smiled at both of them, this time more confidently. She gazed out the window and let out a pleased gasp, squeezing Betsy’s hand.

“You trimmed the yard! Thank you, baby! Oh- is that the picnic blanket?” she asked. “Are we eating outside tonight?”

Betsy mustered a laugh.

“Ah, yeah! It’s not too hot, so I thought it’d be a good night for it. Got pizza and grilled corn on the menu!”

Fran clapped her hands excitedly.

“Oh, that sounds lovely! I could use the fresh air. God knows I’ve been cooped up at the office all day,” she said. “In fact, I’m gonna get outta these stuffy clothes and head on out!”

Fran took off upstairs, leaving Betsy to get started on dinner. Annie remained at the table, doodling in her sketchbook with less and less enthusiasm as the minutes ticked by. When the scratching of pencils stopped entirely, Betsy glanced over her shoulder to see Annie with her head down in her arms.

"Somethin’ on your mind, kid?" Betsy asked.

Annie lifted her head just enough to make eye contact.

"Is Gramma gonna be okay?" she asked. “She looks real tired, like Granpap did.”

Betsy paused. Annie had been young when Betsy's father passed, but she’d adored him; when they’d visit him, she following him like a little shadow until he no longer had the energy to move around on his own. Betsy put her dinner prep aside and sat in the chair next to Annie, wrapping an arm around her.

"Well, Granpap was sick, kiddo," Betsy said.

"Is Gramma sick, too?"

“Gramma’s older now, and she still works a lot. That’s probably why she’s tired. But she can visit the doctor, if that’d make you feel better.”

Annie nodded.

"Yeah. Um. I think about Granpap a lot," she said. "I don't talk about him a lot, though, 'cause it makes you sad."

Betsy squeezed her shoulder.

"Yeah, I do feel sad about him, but so do you. Better to be sad together," she said. “I'll talk to Gramma about seein' the doctor sometime, okay?”

Annie nodded again and leaned against Betsy, sniffling.

Betsy pursed her lips, grateful Annie couldn’t see her face. ‘Sad’ didn’t cut it when it came to her complicated feelings toward her father. Her time in the woods with the Ankhanum brought back those cold, lonely days with Murphy Winters, learning to prepare for ‘the worst’- in the end, though, the one thing her dad hadn’t managed to obsessively prepare for was a cancer diagnosis.

But that wasn't for the kid to know. Not yet, anyway.

Betsy ruffled Annie’s hair.

"Better now?" she asked.

Annie nodded, wiping her face on Betsy's arm.

"Eww, don't wipe your boogers on me!" Betsy said, laughing.

Annie laughed too.

“There’s a smile. Now, get your butt outside," Betsy said. "Go get your CDs and play some tunes for Gramma and the boys.”

Excitedly, Annie did exactly that, running into the living room to gather her CDs, her most recent musical fixation being an all-girl pop band from England. Along the way, she ran into Fran and they’d go outside together.

Betsy sat at the kitchen table for a while longer, gazing out the window; Clive surrendered the chair to Fran and took a seat on the blanket with Annie and Ankhanum. In moments, he was looking puzzled over Annie’s choice in music, but both he and Ankhanum were soon bobbing their head to the tunes.

Betsy was about to get back to it when the phone began to ring, startling her. She snorted to herself at her uneasiness and picked up the phone.

"Hello?" she asked.

There was a crackling buzz on the other end.

"...Hello? Hello, is anyone there?" she asked.

Interspersed in the fuzz on the other end was a voice, one she strained to hear until the dial tone began to drone in her ear. She placed the phone back into its cradle and waited.

When no further calls came, she carried on with dinner.

In time, plates of homemade pizza, grilled corn cobs and salad were laid out, a pitcher of sweet tea in arms reach to wash it all down with. Though Clive wouldn’t admit it aloud, the homemade cheese pizza and grilled corn was worth killing for.

After eating, they’d chat, play card games, and sing to music; Fran even laughed more sincerely than usual at Ankhanum’s attempts at humor. It was still early when she yawned daintily.

“Oh, goodness! Excuse me! I think I’m gonna turn in,” Fran said. “I’ve-”

She made a strange face and slapped at her ear.

"A skeeter get ya?" Betsy asked.

Fran glanced at her hand. Nothing there. She shrugged it off.

"Baby, you need help cleanin’ up before I head upstairs?" she asked.

"We got it handled!" Betsy said.

The sun had set by the time everything was cleaned up, at which point Clive took to the couch for some evening television, Annie settling down as well to doodle away.

Betsy went outside to retrieve the radio. Then she noticed Ankhanum still out on the blanket, staring at the sky.

"What are you sitting out there by yourself for?" she asked.

"This one is stargazing," he said. "Won't you join me?"

Betsy sat down next to him. The sky was aglow with pinprick stars, a sight that made her feel nostalgic.

"The sky was always really pretty at night at camp,” she said.

"Oh, yes, these ones spent many a night looking at the sky when we lived in the woods," he said.

With a grin, she asked, “What was it like? Being a bear?”

"A lot of eating! Preparation for winter never seemed to end. But being animals that are not men has its benefits. They don't need jobs, for one."

"Yeah, but you like bussing tables! Challenges you a bit!”

"Certainly. A challenge is welcome from time to time! Do you enjoy your job at the diner, as well?”

"Hmm, yeah, I guess. Cooking’s what I'm good at," she said. "But y’know what I'd really like to do?"

He hummed questioningly.

"I wanna- Don't laugh," she said, her cheeks flushing. “I wanna have my own restaurant someday.”

Ankhanum inhaled softly and licked his lips at the thought of a whole menu's worth of her cooking.

"I'd go there every day!" he said.

"No, ya wouldn’t, ‘cause I'd go bankrupt tryin' to keep you and the other one fed!” she said. “You two get enough food in you and just go and go. Wish I was like that, sometimes.”

He leaned closer and offered his hand. After a pause, she took it.

"You could be,” he said.

Her fingers twitched in his palm.

"I can offer you a bond of the flesh that lasts a lifetime," he whispered, a strange smile curling his lips.

Norman flashed across Betsy’s mind; how fondly he’d spoken of the red moss that saved his life. Just as quickly, plain as if Ankhanum’s face morphed into it right then and there, she saw Milo’s silent scream atop his torn throat.

She tugged her hand back.

“No,” she said.

He leaned back.

“Did I upset you?” he asked.

“No, not- not really upset, so much as…I like you, but I like being me. Only me. That, and I don’t wanna end up like Herbert. I don’t wanna look like you, and I sure as hell don’t wanna be a cannibal.”

He rose a brow and hummed thoughtfully.

“He’s taken on our appetite, particularly for the flesh- it simply manifested literally. I see the connection.”

Betsy grimaced.

“I must be missin’ something, because I can’t. Are you all like that?”

“Is Norman?”

“No! Well. Y’know, I don’t actually know. But I don’t think he is. What about you?”

“If anything, this one prefers to be consumed,” he said with a wink.

Betsy shoved his shoulder and he cackled. He looked skyward.

“To ‘be serious’, I do not know- if I ever did, I don’t remember,” he said. “We were born the coffin of our maker, and at the time, we knew all they knew, and all we came to know, until we were torn apart. Our recreation of the human brain is complex, but it could never remember all we knew when whole.”

His eyes met hers.

“But not knowing all anymore is okay. We know of beautiful, brief things now.”

Betsy felt her face getting warm. She rubbed at her cheeks and glanced away.

“You’re so weird,” she muttered, but she was smiling.

Their eyes were on the sky now.

“Do you miss your old home?” she asked.

“No,” he said without missing a beat. “Earth is extraordinary. So is its life. Humans, especially.”

“Yeah? What makes us so special?”

That strange smile curled his lips again.

“Your flesh and bones are welcoming. Malleable. Like we were made for each other,” he said dreamily.

The hair rose on her arms.

“Y-yeah?”

“Oh, yes. These ones live well enough outside, but we desire the inside. When we crawl into the skin of a living thing, slide through their veins, feel what they feel- we become as much a part of them, as they us,” he whispered.

The rings in his eyes were glowing hot as embers. She found herself unable to look away.

“That is home, to me,” he said.

He blinked, then, eyes dark brown and perfectly normal once again.

“But this one understands if that does not appeal to you!” he said. “I like Betsy just the way she is, too.”

She stared at him and tilted her head slightly.

“Yeah, I don’t get any of that, at all,” she admitted. “But it’s kinda nice to get an idea of what it’s like to be you. Which…”

She trailed off, rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly.

“What am I to you, exactly?” she asked.

“What does Betsy mean by that?”

“I-if you’re playing the long game for sex, it’s not that big a deal,” she said, cheeks burning hot now. “You don’t have to do all this other stuff.”

“So forward,” he said teasingly.

She groaned, unpleasantly reminded of her diner ‘date’ with his other half some months ago.

“So I’m told,” she said through grit teeth.

He waved a hand nonchalantly.

“If Betsy wants to make love, this one is happy to oblige. But I assure you my fondness for you is not pretending.”

His eyes met hers. She looked away.

“I don’t get that,” she said.

“That’s okay,” he said.

She crossed her arms tightly.

“…Not used to someone treating me like this. They treat me like a brick wall. Like I can’t be hurt. Or like I’m gonna swing on ‘em over anything, and not because they did somethin’ really fucked up.”

Gingerly, she leaned her shoulder against his.

“But you try to be good to me. To my family. Annie really likes you and Clive.”

She glanced back to him. A sappy smile curled his lips, nearly wide enough to split his face in half. He leaned against her gently.

“We can be whatever you want to be, when you’re ready for that. I can wait,” he said. “Should you decide you can’t give me your heart, then I will accept that, too.”

She nudged him with her elbow and sighed, smiling as well.

“Man. You’re so corny,” she said.

“‘Corny’? I think not. I’ve already chosen a name!” he said. “Something beautiful and brief to call my own.”

“Oh, yeah? Like what?”

“Vermeil!”

“Vermeil? Like the-”

“Like vermilion,” he finished, that air of regality taking over. “What I’m called now is important to me and so still applies. But I wished for a name. One that reflected my title.”

Betsy smiled.

“Well then, nice to meet you, Vermeil,” she said, holding out her hand.

He shook it with a grin.

Betsy stood, pulling him up with her.

“Annie’s gonna be devastated you aren’t Anni anymore,” she said teasingly.

“This one can still be Anni, just for her,” he said.

“Aww, how sweet,” she crooned.

He elbowed her with a snort and got to work rolling up the blanket-

Bzz.

His ears perked. He looked over his shoulder, to the back window. Betsy followed his gaze.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“I heard-”

A CRASH from inside the house.

---

“Clive! Psst!”

He cracked an eye open. Annie’s fearful face filled his vision; she stood over him, BB gun in her arms.

“Yes, young one?” he asked groggily.

“Lights! I see lights outside!” she whispered.

He stretched on the couch and rolled to his feet. Betsy’s cooking was notoriously rich; without intending to, he’d dozed. Annie tugged him over to the window.

Sure enough, lights were coming up the street. Headlights.

"Annie, those are from cars," he said.

“Oh. That’s a lotta cars!”

It was, indeed, a lot of cars, enough that Clive lifted the window screen and poked his head out for a clearer look. East Wood Street was a dead-end, a tight one at that, but the procession of cars wasn’t deterred. A line of cars with tinted windows rolled to a stop outside the house.

Clive shut the window and reached over to the front door, double-checking that it was locked.

“Clive? What’s wrong?” Annie asked.

“Perhaps nothing,” he said.

But he didn’t look convinced of that, worry lines creasing his face, a strange enough sight it was making her antsy.

Sanderson, meanwhile, dozed unawares beneath the back window, having gotten his fill of table scraps from dinner.

Bzz.

His ears twitched. Above was a sound like plucking strings, and he propped himself up on his hind legs.

There was a hole in the screen.

He sniffed the air cautiously.

BZZ.

Behind him now. Under the kitchen table, he caught a faint glimmer of iridescence. He crept low to the ground.

There, under a chair, a familiar bug.

He lunged for it.

His jaws clamped onto its wings. They shattered in his mouth and it leapt away, squealing.

Annie and Clive turned in time to see the chaos unfolding; Sanderson chased the fleeing bug under the couch, over the loveseat, throwing remotes and video tapes off the coffee table before clawing his way up Clive’s torso after it. He rocketed off Clive’s head, hitting the front window with his hind legs and careening right into the cabinet containing Fran’s fine china and family photos. Nearly every plate, saucer, cup and picture frame inside the cabinet hit the floor and broke. Clive pulled Annie away from the spreading shards.

Vermeil ran in, Betsy soon after. She stared, mouth open, at the ruins of her mother’s heirloom cabinet, Sanderson digging relentlessly among the wreckage before growling around something in his mouth.

“Herbert, what the FUCK are you doing?!” Betsy cried.

She grabbed at whatever he had hold of- and immediately dropped it as if it burned. Writhing on the ground, screeching to wake the dead, was one of the bugs that had taken up residence in Norman Nguyen’s ears.

Betsy crushed it underfoot and the room fell silent.

Absently, she pat Sanderson on the head.

“Good boy,” she said.

His tail stuck straight in the air in his bafflement. Pet, for the second time.

Lights came on upstairs. Fran, her pajamas twisted about her body, bonnet askew on her head, descended the stairs and screamed, unable to decide what to focus on first: the glittering pile of porcelain and glass that used to be her fine china and framed photos, or the oozing, twitching remains of the largest insect she’d ever seen. She dragged her hands down her cheeks in horror.

“Oh my God! My house!” she wept. “Beth, what is going on?!”

The phone began to ring, startling everyone in the room.

Betsy snatched up the handset with shaking hands.

"Hello?!"

"-Hello?! Is Betsy Winters there?" came a man's horrified voice.

In the background of the call, a repetitive banging.

"Who’s this?" she asked.

"Norman-"

"Norman?! How the hell did you get this number?"

"Paranoid as ever, I see," he said with a sigh. "I wrote it down, back when I still had a job in recon. You need to get out of that house! The department is coming for you!"

Betsy felt a chill creep up her back.

"I was hoping you wouldn't answer," Norman continued. "That you'd have taken my having that photo with your address on it for what it was and gotten the hell out of there by now!"

With that, the line went dead, the dial tone louder than ever.

A hard, rapid thudding began on the front door, the walls, the window. Annie began to scream.

Betsy pursed her lips. She tore at the pullout, shoving it aside. Behind, the cubbyhole beneath the stairs. She pried the door open and from it, she pulled her dad’s shotgun and accompanying box of shells, loading it. Despite its age, it was clean and well-maintained.

Fran inhaled sharply and pulled Annie to her side.

“You kept that thing around?! With a child in the house?!” Fran asked.

“S’not like Annie knew it was there!” Betsy spat. “Now take her and get your asses into the basement!”

Fran’s face went blank. She grabbed Annie’s hand, firmly.

“Gramma, that hurts-” Annie said, pulling at her grandmother’s fingers.

“Come now, dear,” Fran said coldly.

Something about her voice sent a chill along Sanderson’s spine, from the tips of his ears to the tip of his tail. Annie looked desperately to Betsy before disappearing around the corner with Fran.

Silently, Sanderson followed.

The front door buckled inward.

The Ankhanum at the ready on either side of her, Betsy brandished the shotgun at the approaching crowd of people that, their faces illuminated by the light of the television, she recognized: the survivors of Camp 12.

She squinted at the mousy woman leading the pack.

"Dr. Barnes?" Betsy asked.

"Betsy," Mina said bitterly.

---

“Gramma- that hurts!”

Fran’s grip tightened, and with a pained sob, Annie yanked her hand free and stumbled down the stairs, Ankhanum’s mattress becoming a landing pad. The soft creaking of the stairs made Annie’s breath hitch. Fran made her way down, slowly, unsteadily, only to stop at the halfway point. She let out a low groan, bringing her hands to her head. Annie huddled down at the bottom of the stairs, holding her BB gun closer.

“G-gramma?” Annie hiccuped through impending tears.

Fran straightened up, hands dropping to her sides.

“Annie,” said a sing-song voice that wasn’t her grandmother’s. “I’m going to head back upstairs. Be a dear and stay put, would you?”

Sanderson’s fur stood on end.

He knew that voice.

He’d follow Fran up the stairs, and Annie’s fear only grew as her cat changed shape; the animal’s limbs lengthened, paws stretching into fingers that pulled the door shut behind her grandmother.

The man that had been her cat slid the deadbolt into place and stared down at her, fangs caught in the streak of light emanating from the naked bulb dangling further down.

Annie’s grip on the BB gun tightened.

---

Betsy looked into the shifty eyes of people she’d once known and fed, all of them haggard shadows of their former selves. Her stomach twisted into knots. The barrel of the shotgun swayed-

Mina dove for it.

Betsy’s grip steeled and twisted. A breathtaking crack followed as the butt of the shotgun collided with Mina’s jaw at full force. She fell to her knees. The researchers surrounding her backed away; there was no camaraderie here for their supposed leader.

“Try that again and I shoot you,” Betsy said.

Mina looked up at her. The tears brimming in her eyes distorted Betsy’s furious face. Mina’s nails sharpened with a snick, and she readied a strike. “You BITCH-” Mina snarled.

“MINA. STOP.”

Her hands flew to her head and squeezed her eyes shut against the silent shout that rattled her ears.

“Betsy,” Fran said.

Betsy’s heart leapt into her throat. She threw a glance over her shoulder. There stood her mother, looking like a deer in the headlights.

“Mom, what the hell are you doing up here?! Get back into the basement!”

Her mother laughed, an awkward bark of a sound that was anything but her laugh. Goosebumps rose on Betsy’s arms.

“I’m not your mother,” her mother didn’t say, the words coming from her gaping mouth without so much as a twitch of her lips, eyes darting restlessly, unbridled terror glistening on their surfaces.

Betsy’s grip on the shotgun tightened. “Who the hell are you?”

“Eleanor Hassen,” came the voice. “So nice to finally chat with you, dear!”

“I- What did you do to my mother?!”

“You’re a smart woman. Figure it out.”

Betsy barreled for her mother.

Eleanor chuckled at the approaching thunder of footsteps. “Stand down, or I pop your mother’s head like a grape. You don’t want that on your conscience, surely.”

Betsy halted, and her own mouth moved soundlessly, working up and down as she struggled for something, anything to say. The tension in her body was lost, shoulders slumping.

“What do you want from me?” Betsy asked, her voice beginning to crack. “What could you possibly want that would make you fucking- do this, to my MOTHER?!”

“Betsy-” Vermeil started.

She held a trembling, silencing hand up.

“Annie. What did you do to Annie-?!” Betsy said.

Fran’s face shook, tears welling in her eyes.

“The child is still in the basement and is unharmed,” Eleanor said. “Now. Are you done with your tantrum?”

“I am,” Betsy replied through grinding teeth.

“Very good,” Eleanor said. “You have an appointment with me at the department, Ms. Winters. Bring your pets.”

Betsy looked to Clive and Vermeil. They watched her silently with wide and wary eyes, their faces stiff.

“All right,” Betsy said without meeting her mother’s fearful gaze again. “It’s a date.”

The researchers surged forth and though Clive and Vermeil flinched when their grabbing hands made contact, they made no attempt to fight as they were pulled out the door.

Mina wobbled onto her feet, rubbing gingerly at her temples. Betsy gave her a hard stare.

“You all got those freaky implants?” she asked.

Mina ground out something like a laugh, blood oozing from the corners of her eyes.

“You say that like we had a choice,” she said.

She reached out for Betsy-

And Betsy thrust the shotgun into Mina’s arms, eliciting a small sound of surprise from the other woman.

“Don’t put your hands on me. I can walk myself out,” Betsy said.

Mina squeezed the shotgun. The temptation to shoot Betsy dead where she stood nearly overpowered her fear of retaliation from Eleanor in that moment. Nearly. So instead, Mina smiled tightly as Betsy left the house and began the slow walk down the porch stairs. Glimpses of neighbors peeking between their curtains and hurriedly closing them again made Betsy’s stomach boil.

“Betsy! Long time no see!” Eugene Williams said, standing at the back of one of the vehicles.

A thud caught Betsy’s ear.

Clive was spread out against a car hood, being pat down.

Get out of here, she mouthed.

He stared back at her with an unreadable expression.

She nearly sobbed when he allowed himself to be shoved into the car.

Standing in the doorway, Mina held the shotgun with hands that trembled with a brewing rage. Tonight, she was closer to the woman she’d been six months ago, staring down the transformed Dr. Sanderson-

“Mina,” Eleanor said, too close for comfort.

Mina jolted as Fran’s swaying form appeared beside her.

“Y-yes, ma’am?” Mina asked.

“Would you check out the basement before you leave?”

"What the hell for?”

There was a scolding pinch of pain between her ears.

“Mind your tone, dear,” Eleanor said. “Someone is down there with the child.”

"Who else-" Mina started, before a snarl curled her lips.

"Who else?" Eleanor echoed, positively elated.

---