It was a late September night. The moon was at mid-sky ready to rise even higher to the sky from the blood-red sky of dust to the eternal night of ethereal violet. All along Jeopardy Lane, the houses all had finely manicured lawns… except for one. All the houses were very well maintained with new roofs and asphalt driveways… except one. Parked in nearly every driveway was a fine, expensive European car… except one. The car that belonged to that driveway was chugging its way down the street, belching smoke, leaking oil and lurching and gasping along its way. The strange thing was that the engine wasn't even running. It had conked out on the by-pass and its driver was still rolling from the momentum off the freeway as he drove through the Hennessy's mailbox, sending it flying into the Finnerty's garden. The car left its tread marks in the Brady's yard as it spun round the corner, roared through the Gold's bushes and terrorized the Forman's defenseless wiener dog before rolling to a stop in its drive way like a dead pigeon landing in its own nest. Sean Finnerty had heard the ruckus coming down the street and came out beer in hand as he watched Al Bundy struggle to apply the brake before smacking into his own garage. Finnerty didn't think those brakes would work, but they actually did helped a bit by the tail end of the Darcy's Mercedes.

Gasping tiredly, Bundy tiredly untied his rope seatbelt in the car and staggered out of the driver's side seat in his brown pants and blue shirt. His face was shaped to reflect a man tired of life but not able to take himself out of it. He was meant for so much better with his life. What the heck happened?! He paused outside of his red belching and smoking Dodge, looked to God in the heavens for solace that never came then slammed his frustrated hostility in the door of his junker. Actually, it was a junker when he first bought it; today, it was basically a set of metal parts held together by the oil flowing through it. Upon slamming the door, the smoke coughed out and the engine started running smooth again.

"Lousy, stinking…." Al began kicking the side of the car until the engine popped loudly and shut off. His face twisting with disgust, he draped his jacket over his right shoulder with his right hand and forced himself to tread through his weed-filled walkway to the front entrance. From across the street, Finnerty started screaming.

"Hey, Bundy!" Sean loved to remind Al how bad he had it. "My wife made me pork chops for dinner! What do you think your wife has for you?"

"Well," Al hollered back. "If she's like your wife, it's the mailman chained to the bed upstairs!"

"I didn't need to hear that!"

"And I don't need to see your son wearing dresses in your upstairs window!"

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Figure it out, Finnerty!"

"Hey, Bundy!" Michael Gold now began yelling. "When are you going to mow that jungle you call a yard?"

"How about when your wife shaves the whiskers!!!" Al smirked a bit, unlocked his front door and entered into a darkened house. He looked around a bit angrily and checked to see if the power company got the check. He flicked the light switch and the lights actually came on for him. Well, what do you know! The check cleared! He looked over to the stained yellow and orange sofa with his wife lying across it asleep. She was wearing leopard-skin Capri pants, a black blouse and was topped by a pompadour of crimson red hair. A mix of trailer-park trash with all the extravagances of redneck in breeding, she was the laziest almost-a-housewife that ever existed. Al looked at her with his Cro-Magnon brow turned into a disgusted grimace and his face contorted with angry contempt just picturing her laid out all and nice in a casket being rolled into a blast furnace. Better yet, nailed into a pine coffin kicking and screaming as it was being shoved off a ship! A bottle of beer from the six-pack in the refrigerator inhabited only by a box of baking soda, a mystery crumple of aluminum foil and a dead mouse, Al turned back from the kitchen and looked back to the woman on the sofa, giving the end of it a good sound kick to wake the woman on it. The red-haired nightmare of womanhood stirred and checked her cheap silver watch.

"Oh, god…" Her watch read 5:37. "That idiot's going to be home any second expecting me to cook…" She noticed she wasn't alone. "Oh, hi, Al."

"Peggy, please…" Al forced an unhappy smile. "In the privacy of our house, please call me Mr. Idiot." Peggy scooted aside to let him sit down by her. "A fat woman oozed into the shoe store today…."

Peggy rolled her eyes upon having to hear this.

"She was so fat that she could only sweat in gravy sauce." Al recalled the incident seared into his brain. "She was so fat that she looked like she had just eaten three other ladies. She was so fat that her double-chin had a double-chin!" Al looked to Peggy hoping for a bit of compassion. "She asked me if I sold any shoes, and I told her we had nothing larger than Peterbuilt…" He paused as if he was in a TV series allowing a burst of laughter from an imaginary TV audience as he rubbed his bald spot tiredly. "She tries to hit me with her purse, and two boxes of ding-dongs, half a pie, three baked potatoes, a wiener on a stick and a whole chicken came flying out of it. While she's scrambling to catch the ding-dongs, I grabbed the chicken and locked myself in the bathroom to have some lunch!"

"That's nice, Al…" Peggy sat there barely paying attention as her left leg bounced on her right. "So, I guess you got to go back to work tonight?"

"No…"

"Take me out to dinner!"

"Peg…" Al looked at him in complete disbelief. "We can't afford it!!! Bud keeps changing the password on his bank account!!!" He referred to his son who had a job as financial trader. Now thirty-two-years of age, Bud had graduated college in 1996 and had acquired a great job through his college contacts making just enough money to get by, but not enough to get a place of his own. He still lived at home with his parents and his sister, Kelly, who had stumbled through a series of brief modeling jobs and one acting job as dead body number three in a slasher flick. A role she still screwed up by smiling and waving at the camera. While the Bundy family curse was still trying to cling to Bud, it seemed to be centered on Kelly. Though she was still exceptionally attractive, her IQ still hovered between pond scum and kitchen linoleum.

"Hey…" Bud came wandering through the house after one of his co-workers dropped him off at home. It was a situation necessitated by Kelly driving his 1990 Plymouth Reliant into Lake Michigan, but he'd had his revenge by spreading the rumor that she used to be a guy. As the only barely succeeding Bundy, Bud traipsed behind his parents, looked at the empty six-pack in the fridge and turned round to his father.

"You got the last beer, didn't you?" He forced an annoyed smile.

"Uh, Bud…" Al looked to his son. "Your mother's wanting to go out. Can I have my allowance?"

"Didn't I just give you your allowance?"

"Well, your mother's very expensive!!" Al shot back as Peggy beamed and stroked her red bouffant.

"That's not my fault!" Bud shook his head disgustedly, pulled out his wallet and pulled out a fifty-dollar bill. "I'm warning you, dad! I've almost got enough to put a down payment on a condo at the lake. I'll be looking out over dozens of hot young girls in bikinis, and I won't share with you the address! You'll never see me again! I'll change my name to Bud Smith!!"

"Bud," Al stood and tried to have a moment with his son. "I've got bad news for you. Celestial Acres is a retirement community. The only figures you'll see will be prune-shaped!" Al turned and started following Peggy out to the old Dodge to go to dinner; they'd have to jump the battery off the Darcy's Mercedes again. Bud could only turn round disgusted and exasperated. As his parents rushed off to spend their allowance, someone else came slinking in to the house. Gliding in on two long legs wearing a black mini-skirt and violet off-the-shoulder blouse obscured by a leather jacket, Kelly noticed her parents rushing out and turned to Bud with her own hand extended. Bud just looked at her.

"Kelly," He looked to his vacuous big sister with the blonde hair. "You've been missing for three days. Where have you been?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Out there." She resisted his third degree, and he looked away wanting to scream.

"Kelly!" Bud was getting so tired of her. "I set up a job interview for you as a receptionist for an exercise studio! All you had to do was sit there and have people sign in. Did you even show up?!!"

"Of course!" The thirty-six-year-old airhead with the body of a Playboy centerfold traipsed over to the fridge, looked at the empty beer carton inside it and closed it again. "I even took the breast exam!"

"What breast exam?"

"The one the seventeen vice-presidents made me take!" Kelly reacted as if she was just now figuring out they was using her. "I think I kept failing it because they made me do it over and over and over…"

"I don't want to hear it!!!" Bud turned away covering his ears. He turned back again. "Did you get the job?"

"They gave it to Chelsea Baxter." Kelly posed a bit upset. "She's a forty double-d!"

"Yeah, I remember them… her! I remember her!!!" Bud composed a bit, sighed loudly and wandered over to the sofa from the kitchen to collapse off his feet. Sitting in his blue seven-dollar thrift store suit, the remnants of his teenage mustache and goatee on his face, he yawned and groaned simultaneously trying to deal with his life. He just couldn't take living in this house much longer. He needed help getting out and away from his parents begging for cash and his sister's idiotic escapades.

"Bud," Kelly came around the sofa with one of them now, sat prim and proper by his side and turned toward him wanting his advice. "I've got a problem."

"Wait till the contractions are ten minutes apart and then call 911!" Bud screamed ready to lose it.

"I'm not pregnant, Pimple Boy!!!" Kelly shot back. "Bud, I think I'm possessed!!!"

Bud lifted his head up off the back of the sofa. He was not sure he had heard her right.

"What?!!!" He asked her to repeat it.

"Bud," Kelly spoke seemingly concerned. "My friends and I went out to the old Pepsi warehouse off Route 666 and spent the night. We had a party and I passed out in the center of a weird symbol painted in the center of the floor. Ashley said that meant I was cursed. What sort of medicine should I take for that?"

"Kelly…" Bud rolled his eyes unable to comprehend he was having this discussion. "One, Ashley also believes she can fly if she wears a cape."

"Well, she did!!!" Kelly recalled that. "She flew for all of three seconds before she crashed!"

"Two…" Bud added. "A photo of Britney Spears is not a demonic symbol!"

"Well, she creeps me out!"

"And three," Bud humored her further. "If you are possessed, I'm sure he's very lonely in there for him!" He knocked his fist against her head as if her head was hollow then rose and turned round the sofa to head to his room. It was now Kelly's chance to look disgusted. She was not as stupid as everyone thought… just a little distracted at times.

"Bud!" She really wanted his advice. "Ashley said I could turn into something tonight! What should I do if I turn into something?!"

"Don't forget to wax your legs!!!" Bud called back from the top of the stairs. "Vampires really hate lady werewolves with hairy legs!" Bud staggered to his apartment upstairs in his parent's house and left Kelly alone to her crazy delusions. He used to live in the basement, but after the last big rain, it had flooded. Today, Peg called it the swimming pool in the basement. At his bedroom door, Bud had two deadbolts and a combination lock to his bedroom door plus a burglar alarm wired to the inside. Reaching in to switch off the alarm, he slipped inside and hung his jacket on a coat rack to the inside, closing his door behind him. He reached to his mini-bar and took out a can of Pepsi and one of the sandwiches he purchased from the gas station. Dropping onto his bed, he flicked on his TV-VCR combo to Spike TV to catch the tail end of an episode of CSI. If he had known forensics would be so cool, he'd have followed that line of work. Thirty-two years old and his life was not where he thought it would be. He wasn't sure if he believed in a Bundy curse, but he had to admit that there was something about his life that kept him from moving on and being completely independent. Sipping his soda, he drifted his gaze over to his blow-up woman and wanted to set it afire. He was a decent guy; why couldn't he get very far with women?!

This was the way his nights usually ended. He always drifted off to sleep barricaded in his room hiding from his parents and regretting the life he never had. While he never had the sort of "four touchdowns" thing his father had, he now understood why it was the last and only crowning achievement that the old man had. He didn't even have that. No girl in his life, a job that only left him partially fulfilled, parents and a sister hanging on his salary… he was the only thing keeping them afloat, and he was ready to jump ship the second things turned into his direction.

Gradually, Bud became influenced by the night blanketing the house and drifted off to sleep. Waking up just to flick off his TV and light, he soon drifted off to sleep once more. The house was quiet. His parents might not have made it home yet. There was no whining from his father as his mother wanted sex. There was no rusting from the side of the house by the dregs or future America's Most Wanted candidates climbing it and out of his sister's bedroom window. For once, Bud appreciated the silence, but still, he half-expected the distance furtive "Aw, Peg…" from across the hall or Lucky scratching at his door because he was "participating" with Isis, his blow-up girlfriend. Stupid dog. Kelly had shredded Isis months ago to make a latex halter-top.

A creak forced Bud to lift his head and he looked at his door through sleepy squinty eyes. It sounded as if someone was at his door. It was either his father stealing food from his mini-fridge, his mother trying to find his checkbook or Kelly trying to humiliate him again. That was why he now slept in his clothes. Looking over, he peered sleepily over the shadowy expanse of objects that was his private sanctum and figured it was another of the creeps and groans from a fifty-year old house that had been flooded, blown up and even hit by lightning. Settling once more, Bud closed his eyes, rolled to his side and tried to dream of a life where he had a girlfriend and an apartment of her own.

The creak happened again. This time it was much more obvious as if something was in the room hovering over him. Bud rolled again and looked over the shadows of black, dark gray and blue. From under his bedroom door, there was a shadow bobbing back and forth blocking the light. He watched it for a few seconds rolling back and forth as if someone was hovering just outside his room.

"I haven't got any money!!!" He moaned tiredly. "Leave me alone!!!" His voice bellowed and his body flipped over and dropped into his bed. Scowling into his sleep, Bud sighed tiredly waiting for sleep to once more take him. He practically felt the darkness looming over him. The room was getting colder. He could feel his breath turning to mist. Something in his head was screaming at him to get out of the room. He wasn't asleep yet and yet he was having a nightmare. From over him, he heard that creak again as if from the straining rope of a hangman's noose and then a distant plaintive gasp. Was someone in his room? He never even heard the door or saw the light from the hall filling the room. That creepy crawly feeling was dancing up and down his back. His imagination stirring him to new and deeper fears, Bud lifted his head and looked around his room. The light was off in the hall now and gone with it was the sliver of light under his door. The moonlight lit up his picture of Christina Aguilera, making her the star of his own mental sexually explicit horror movie in his head along with Lindsay Lohan, Ashley Tisdale and Christina Ricci. The rest of the room was getting darker. The cold air made the hairs on his arm and shoulders stand at attention. There was no AC in this house; why was it so freaking cold? Feeling eight-years old again, Bud turned back on to his left side and noticed a face eye-level with him in the dark.

Her eyes filled with inky black darkness, Kelly clamped her right hand over Bud's mouth to keep him from screaming and pinned him to his bed. His voice screaming into the palm of her hand, he felt her knee buried to his chest and watched through wildly hysterical eyes as Kelly reared her demonic features back, her long blonde hair cascading down her back, and opened her mouth to several sharp pointed teeth like that of a human shark. Her weight crushing the breath from her brother's body, she opened her mouth wide to that horrible gullet, her lips peeling back from those horrible fangs and reared forward burying her bite deeply into her brother's neck…