"No, I'm sorry, we close strictly at ten. We'll be open bright and early tomorrow, but I'm afraid you have to make your rental now or never," Lucy explained patiently to the group of twenty-somethings. Lord knew they'd taken their time examining each and very video tape in the store. The particularly dazed look one of the girls had was one she hadn't been unfamiliar with when she was the same age. Lucy didn't miss those days very much.

"We've got money," the loudest of the group protested, "why can't you just give us five more minutes?"

Lucy's pained expression seemed to be just the trick to drawing Maria's attention to the front counter, so she left her dirt devil near the back shelf and strode over, "she said we're closed, so beat it. You guys do this every week with the same story. If your car sucks so much you can't make it here half an hour before we lock up, then you've got bigger problems than movies. Go on, go away," she made an impatient gesture with her hand, making the neon plastic bracelets on her arm click together.

It wasn't until they'd finally locked up and Lucy grabbed her clutch purse from the back room that she pulled Maria aside to talk. She didn't feel right bringing this up with people in the store, and they hadn't had a free minute all day with the sudden summer night rush that seemed to hit all at once.

"What's up?" Maria asked, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she adjusted her chain-handled purse over her shoulder. She was such a pretty girl. In a way, she reminded Lucy of the one staying at her house. Maybe just a little more talkative.

"Have you heard from Max at all today? He was supposed to be here tonight to help close, and I was just wondering if you knew anything." It mortified Lucy to think her son's behavior had anything to do with this. Surely Max wasn't too upset. He'd assured her several times before he left after dinner how he perfectly understood that Sam was just acting out for attention. Maybe Max had decided to stay home to perfect the perfect break-up letter and pink slip all in one neatly-written page complete with bullet points and an additional cover sheet. No. Max wasn't like that. He was a good man.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing," Maria replied, neatly sculpted eyebrows shooting up in surprise. "Did something happen between you two last night?"

"What?" Lucy tried to hide the surprise in her voice, "no, oh no. No. Not at all." She did not hide it very well.

"Hey, it's none of my business," Maria quickly replied, "sorry I asked." She paused, looking thoughtful while she drummed a couple of acrylic red nails on the countertop. "Hey!" She snapped her fingers, "he's got a couple businesses, so maybe something came up. If he didn't have time to call, or he got stuck in traffic, we can't blame him."

Lucy smiled, "you're right. You're absolutely right. I'm just a little worried." Max had mentioned a quiet supper at his house this evening just after closing the store. Lucy wasn't so sure what to do now. She couldn't just stand him up, and it would take a little while to get home. If he wasn't there-his dog was enough of a deterrent to make her think twice about showing up.

"Do you mind if I make a quick call before we lock up?" Lucy asked, looking back at the phone behind the video counter.

"You go ahead," Maria waved her off, "do what you gotta do."

He didn't answer. His machine, however, did. "Hello, this is Maxwell Peters. I'm afraid I can't come to the phone at the moment. If you'll leave your name and phone number, and the reason you're calling, I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Keep in mind, I don't receive or make phone calls before six pm."

Lucy hung up before leaving a message, deciding she would just drive to his house and see if his car was there. Then she'd know he was home without causing a fuss. She just didn't have the energy tonight. Not after blowing up on Sam and Michael. Yes, she had good reason, but Lucy still didn't enjoy it. She'd never really lost her temper with them before, and it was worrying. Their first day in Santa Carla seemed like such a good start and now she didn't know why everything was going so wrong.

Her hand hovered over the phone's keypad for a good half minute or so as she debated whether or not she should try calling again, when Lucy looked over at the counter and realized Maria was watching her. It wasn't with the disinterested impatience of a girl who wanted to lock up and go home, but something else. Pity? Lucy had grown tired of that look in Phoenix, and she was tired of it now.

"I guess he's not home," Lucy said, trying to make it sound like she was just commenting on the weather or a popular movie they needed to restock on the shelf tomorrow. Instead the words came out sounding like a hesitant whisper. Something like the sound she'd make if she was on the verge of tears. She wasn't that upset about Max, but all of this stress in one day-one week-it was beginning to get to her.

"Shoot," Maria replied, "girl, get out of your head! Look, there's a bar down the boardwalk that's open for another couple of hours, why don't we just grab a drink and talk, huh? You look like you could use it."

Lucy shook her head, "I'm fine. I'm just tired, it's okay."

"Okay, you're fine. So you're going to make me walk down there at night all alone in the murder capital of the world?" Maria prompted, "I'm getting a drink whether you are or not, so why don't you just go with me." She bit her bottom lip and wiggled her eyebrows just a little, "huh? C'mon."

"You're not going to take no for an answer, are you?"

"Nope," Maria replied, reaching across the counter to tug on Lucy's free hand that wasn't hovering over the phone, "you need it."

Lucy gently pulled her hand away and stepped away from the phone with the resolve not to call him again, Maria's warmth doing something to relieve her of at least a small portion of the nervous energy she hadn't even realized she was holding in, "do I really look that bad?"

"Nah. You look great." Maria assured her. "I just want a drink. It's ladies night."

"Okay, I'll go with you, but I'm only having one glass of wine."

"We'll see," Maria replied, smirking as she turned away to stride quickly towards the door.

"One drink," Lucy repeated firmly.

"One drink. Got it." Maria replied, and Lucy wasn't entirely certain she was convinced.


"Mom and dad in bed?" Alan called out from the kitchen as he scrounged for dinner.

"Yeah," Edgar replied, flipping on the tv. "Passed out with their shoes on," he added casually. It'd only be weird if they actually had managed to change before bed. As far as parents went, they weren't bad people. They were just sort of half-there. They kept the fridge stocked. They paid the bills. They managed all the basic stuff, at least. But if they maybe paid a little more attention to their sons, Edgar and Alan might never have started their hunting business on the side. Or made it a habit to get called into the office every other friday during the school year since the fourth grade.

"Frito pie and pepsi?" Alan suggested, snatching a half-empty bag of fritos from the kitchen counter.

"What else do we have?" Edgar asked, scowling. He hated frito pie.

"We've got coca cola." Alan paused, "and Shasta. I think there's still a couple of cheese pizzas in the freezer."

"Just put something together, we've got a lot of planning to do tonight," Edgar told him, surveying the map he'd left out on the coffee table. Well, crude drawing of a map anyway. They were going to start getting more serious with their flyers, and they were trying to figure out where they'd get the most attention. "Have we tried the old folks home yet?"

"Yeah, they told us not to come back, remember?" Alan busied himself in the kitchen, tossing all the ingredients for frito pie into a large mixing bowl and popping it into the microwave. It'd be burnt on the top and cold in the middle, but it was way too late at night for him to bother with the oven. He popped the tab on a can of Pepsi and waited for the food to cook. He wasn't standing around for long when the kitchen and living room phones began to ring. Maybe Sam had another idea. Had he somehow snagged a bloodsucker already? The idea seemed laughable.

"Got it!" Edgar shouted from the living room as the ringing cut off. "Hello? Yeah? Yeah? Right. No. Go on. Fifty bucks. Forty. Okay. We'll get right on it. What's your number?"

It was too surreal listening to one half of a conversation, so Alan reached for the kitchen phone hanging up on the wall by the fridge, ignoring the beep of the microwave to signal that their burnt chili-covered feast was ready.

"I don't know what happened to Angela, we can't even get her to talk. Curtis wet himself. Cops will just call us crazy. Listen, what I'm getting at is I'll probably have to pay in installments, and I probably wouldn't even call you guys if I hadn't found that old comic book you gave me last summer. I don't know or care how you do it, I just want whatever's in that funhouse gone. You don't just hunt vampires, I mean, you can kill things without legs that look like people you know and puke up roaches when they're mad, right?"

Alan hung up the phone, convinced someone was just making a stupid prank call. Edgar sounded way too excited to tell him otherwise right now, so he just let it go and focused on the masterpiece he'd tossed in the microwave. Cooked it a little too long. He could probably just cover it with more cheese and fritos. Edgar probably wouldn't notice.


Michael sat up, wiping the blood from his chin and looking down at his victim disinterestedly. What had once been a living person lost all his appeal when he didn't have any blood left to share. Now he was just like a crumpled soda can on the beach. A leftover to be covered up or thrown out.

"Done?" David asked, standing at a distance under the peer with the others, watching the tide foaming up nearby. Not quite far enough to reach them.

"Yeah," Michael replied, making a mental note to keep a handkerchief or something in his pocket to clean himself up next time as he improvised by finding the one spot on the dead guy's shirt that wasn't saturated with blood or grime. He was just a drifter who picked a bad camping spot. Too bad for him.

Tearing the scrap of fabric from the dead guy's shirt, Michael used it to scrub at the lower portion of his face as he climbed to his feet and strolled casually towards the pier. Too dark out here for any normal person to see them, so he wasn't really worried whether he looked like a victim from some horrible accident or just a messy cannibal.

Michael looked down at his shirt and jeans. The spare clothes he'd found at the hotel last night after his first kill worked just fine, but he'd honestly prefer some clothes that didn't smell like dirt and must, "I've gotta go home tonight."

"Why?" David asked, almost a little too quickly. He knew Michael wasn't talking about the hotel.

"Clothes," Michael indicated his shirt and jeans, "I really don't think I can pull of this look for long."

"Hey, looks good," Marko joked, "the red really brings out your eyes."

David seemed to relax a little, eyeing Michael's shirt, "can't do that every night. You'll run out of stuff in a couple of weeks."

Michael's eyebrows shot up, "how often am I supposed to kill people?"

"Pretty often," Dwayne told him, nudging a half-broken shell in the sand with the tip of his shoe, "takes a couple years before the cravings die down a little."

"Great," Michael grumbled, trying to squeeze out a little of the excess from his shirt. A couple of drops at least. "So every time we hang out I'm going to have to make a pit stop by a drifter before bed?"

David's smile was slow to form, like a dozen hidden thoughts were rushing through his mind before he decided which one to say aloud, "no. There's plenty of choices out there. Night guards. Streetwalkers. Insomniac joggers. We can even share when the picking's slim. How's that sound?"

"Doesn't solve my shirt problem," Michael pointed out, not even pausing to think much about the blood sharing thing. Didn't seem like a big deal.

"Okay, how about this," David dug into his pocket for a handkerchief, offering it to Michael when he'd thoroughly used up the shredded piece of shirt, "we go to your old place tonight, pick up a few things, and we can go shopping tomorrow if it's such a big deal."

"All of us?" Michael asked, glancing over at the others, unsure whether he trusted them entirely not to take a bite out of his grandpa, mom, or brother. For him, they were still family. Maybe not in the same way they used to be, but they were his. None of the others had that same hang-up about them as anything besides food.

"You don't trust me?" Paul inquired, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was digging into Michael's thoughts.

"No," Michael replied flatly. Not upset, just honest. "I don't."

David glanced over at Dwayne, Paul, and Marko in turn before speaking,"they'll go back to the hotel and I'll go with you. Better?" He raised an eyebrow, "you trust me, don't you, Michael?"

He probably shouldn't, given the twisted path that led him to become a member of this pack, but instincts guided Michael's answer more than anything, "yeah. For the most part." It felt oddly gratifying when David's smile deepened in response.

It was easier to take their bikes back to the hotel first, so they didn't have to worry about strapping a duffel bag to one of them. Michael left his jacket on the couch and borrowed another leftover shirt and pair of jeans buried in one of the many piles of trinkets and leftovers of countless meals. He could put up with the smell for now if it meant not having to explain the blood stains to his mom if she happened to walk in on him digging through his closet. At least the short flight home through the summer night aired it out a little.

"Shit," Michael cursed under his breath, once his ratty sneakers met grass as they landed on the front lawn.

"What?" David glanced over at him.

"I forgot Star's here," Michael glared up at his bedroom window. He didn't want to deal with her right now. Lingering feelings of betrayal and a shallow sort of affection pricked at the back of his mind. He didn't know what to do with that.

"I don't think she is," David shook his head, "Laddie's gone too."

"How do you know?"

David tapped on the side of his temple, "I can hear them. Three people in there. One dog. Just listen."

Michael looked up at his bedroom window, not sure what he was supposed to listen for. Right now the only thing his ears could pick up were bugs scraping their legs through the grass, wind, the chimes on the porch and banging bits of musical bone shards. He listened a little longer.

Before he heard the thrumming pulses, and his senses expanded to envelop the sounds within the house like they had last night when he had no control over them, Michael heard and felt David's breath on his shoulder as he drew closer. Cold puffs of air rushing through dead lungs through force of habit.

"Can you hear it now?" David asked, the question a reed thin whisper near Michael's ear. Sharp and clear beneath the growing strength of the hearts beating within the house. If he hadn't eaten tonight, Michael realized how very close he might come to actually taking the invitation those hearts seemed to offer to him. Family or not, the blood was so much stronger than any sentimental feelings he clung to.

"Careful," David warned as he drew back, clapping Michael on the shoulder. "Don't listen too long," he joked. Michael let the sounds fade to nothing and forced himself to focus instead on just the night wind, his bedroom window, and David.

They crept in through his bedroom window, crawling along the side of the house like spiders. Michael had never bothered latching it, even after his unexpected flight, when he thought it was all just a bad trip. Using the front door would've just caused more trouble. Michael didn't want to risk waking anyone tonight.

Once they were in his old room, everything seemed to hit him all at once. Michael would never sleep in his bed again, and the flowery scent of Star was a reminder of the last person who did. He'd never win another trophy to add to his small collection, or wake up to the sound of his little brother shouting for breakfast. It was all over. Everything.

Michael sat down on the edge of his bed while David walked around, idly picking at things. A discarded football in the last box that'd never been unpacked. A sweater that had just narrowly missed his laundry basket. Little things that was so human and so small, they made Michael feel like he was sitting in a dead teenager's bedroom. He sort of was.

David paused at the bedroom door where a newly affixed mirror had been set up. Michael hadn't put it there. Maybe Sam did. "I didn't get to go to school much," David remarked, examining the mirror and looking back at the reflection of the wall behind him. "Couple of days here and there. Sort of taught myself." He looked back at Michael, "I didn't have much, but it was mine."

"Do you miss it?" Michael asked, scratching a hole in one of his bed covers idly, nails sharp enough right now to shred them if he put his mind to it.

"Sometimes," David admitted with a shrug, walking over to the edge of the bed and sitting down beside him, "the good stuff, mostly. Blue skies, birds singing, all that bullshit."

Michael smirked, the mental image of David frollicking like Julie Andrews in a meadow coming to mind, "that all?"

David rolled his eyes, "Star's perfume is giving me a headache."

Taking the hint, Michael stood up and walked over to his closet to dig for something to wear. Stuff he didn't mind getting dirty. A couple of t-shirts, a few pairs of jeans. Some sweaters with snags in the sleeves. Not like he was going to dress up any time soon. He was in Phoenix all over again debating whether or not he wanted to stay. Better to go with Sam and mom. He'd look after them.

He glared at a pair of faded slacks, some hand-me-downs his dad had shoved in Michael's closet because he was too cheap to throw them away. At least there was some shit he was glad to leave behind. He crumpled them into a ball and threw them on a ground, scooping up a duffle bag near some old dress shoes in the corner of the closet and shoving the clothes without the shitty memories into it.

"You ready?" David asked, standing up and looking around the room one last time.

"Sure," Michael told him, slinging the bag over a shoulder while David climbed out of the bedroom window. He followed, stopping in his tracks when he noticed a folded piece of paper on his bedroom desk with his name on it. Michael grabbed the paper and shoved it into his pocket and let the wind outside carry him into the night.