Jeff: No, people feel like it's too far from canon and adds unnecessary characters.

LoudRisque: No, it's fine, I'm sorry if I misspoke and made you think I was upset. My point was just that there really aren't many Gen 3 characters I could work with and there's not much to the ones that do exist.

Abby came slowly and groggily awake, sights, sounds, and scents swirling around her in a disorienting vortex of sensation. Her head ached monstrously, her stomach rolled, and her neck muscles blared agony into her addled brain. She smacked her dry lips together and attempted to lift her head, but a lightning bolt of pain struck her frontal lobe and she hissed through her teeth. She went to rub her fevered temple, but her hand wouldn't obey her command. Huh? She pried open her gummy lids, and the light, though low, stung her orbs. She blinked the grit away and took a series of deep, labored breaths.

What happened?

She tried to summon a memory, but the last thing she recalled was watching Flagg disappear down the road...rather, watching Flagg's butt clench and wiggle under his tight blue jeans. She swallowed, throat tacky, and resisted the pressing darkness tinging the edges of her consciousness. Something was wrong. She hurt all over and couldn't move; why were her hands numb? Why did every exhalation make her head pound?

Her mind went instantly to the baby, and cold terror flooded her stomach like icy sludge. Mama bear energy flowed through her and she flopped her head back with a gasp.

When she saw the woman sitting across the table from her, it all came back. The monster with the chainsaw, the cop, Bobby Jr. A scream locked in her throat and alarm detonated inside of her. Her eyes went to the thing beside Lori, and the scream came out as a trembling ahhhh. It was tall and lanky with chocolate milk colored hair pulled back in a ponytail, its face covered by a mask of saggy, clay-like skin with wide, gaping eyeholes. Stitches crisscrossed the gruesome vizard, lending it a patchwork appearance. Abby pulled frantically at her bindings but they didn't budge.

Lori looked from the thing to Abby. Seeing her fear, the blonde woman softened her brows. "Don't be scared, honey," she said. She laid her hand on the thing's head and petted it affectionately, as though it were a friendly cat. "It's just Lacy. She wears her mama's face." Lori offered a bemused little chuckle. "She wants to be just like her."

Across the kitchen, Lyah stood at the stove with her back to Abby and languidly stirred the contents of the pot. Liena slipped a fudge covered Twinkie into her mouth and masticated with grotesque grunts of pleasure, and Bobby Jr. sat next to Vale, a napkin tucked into his T-shirt and utensils clutched in his hands. Logan leaned against the counter next to the oven and drink beer from a glass bottle. Three empties marched across the surface like tombstones.

Letting her hand drop from Lacy's head, Lori looked at Abby with motherly concern. "What's your name, honey?"

Vale produced a muffled umph, and scowling, Bobby Jr. jabbed his arm with the business end of his fork. "You shut up," the boy said, "n-no one cares about you. Your opinion don't matter."

"Tell me your name, sweetie," Lori said, "honest, I won't bite."

Abby didn't want to tell this bitch shit, but she heard herself speaking her name anyway, the tearful quality of her voice making her wince. "That's a pretty name," Lori said. She preened in satisfiction and sat back. "Logan, go get the others. I wanna see my girls all together."

Finishing his beer, Logan sat it next to the others and went through the archway into the living room. A moment later, he came back with a hand closed around the arm of an emaciated girl with brown hair. Her sallow face was covered in dirt and bruises, one eye swollen shut, and her purple jacket was rumpled and dotted with rips and bloodstains. Abby's stomach knotted at the sight of the girl's vacant stare, like that of a shell shocked refugee; her lips moved but produced no sound...at least no sound that Abby could hear. Logan forced her into a chair beside Abby and went back into the living room without tying her hands. The girl made no move to escape, however; she remained where she was, a trained dog who knew better than to transgress against its masters' wishes. She gazed sightlessly down at her lap and went on mumbling; now, Abby was able to make out words. "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil...lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…"

Logan returned, this time holding the hand of a little Japanese girl about eleven whose knees knocked fearfully together. Her big brown eyes shimmered with tears and she clamped down on her bottom lip with her teeth as if to keep from crying. He lead her to a chair on Abby's other side, sat, then pulled her into his lap, his big, calloused hand not-so-innocently cupping one of her tiny, rosebud breasts through her dress. Lori fluttered her hand to her mouth and looked from prisoner to prisoner with the glowing pride of a parent. "Aren't they precious?"

"They sure are," Logan said huskily. He pressed his lips lecherously to the little girl's neck and kneaded her breast. She hung her head in shame and started to cry.

"Cut it out," Lori ordered, "you know she ain't ready."

Logan kissed the little girl's jaw, his lips leaving slimy trails on her flesh. "Soon."

"Once she gets her first visit from Aunt Flo," Lori said. She looked at Abby and took a deep breath, not seeing or ignoring the shock in her eyes. "Our family's been intermarryin' a long time," she said, "that's how we preserve our genes." She laid her hand once more on Lacy's head, as though the girl were a shining example of genetic superiority. "After a while, it got to be too much. We need to...water things down a little." She faltered as if searching her limited vocabulary for words to express herself with; even in her flustered state, however, Abby knew exactly what the woman was getting at.

Lori uttered a nervous laugh and brushed her bangs from her eyes. "That's where you, Lyra, and Bed come in." She nodded to the brown haired girl, Lyra, then to the Japanese girl, Bed. Strange name. Made no sense whatsoever. Probably someone's idea of a lame joke. "We gotta keep makin' babies. Fifty plus just ain't enough; we need more. We're related to all of Loudville, then one day, we're gonna spread out even more. We're going to take over and everything's gonna be done our way. If you don't like it, you can get the hell out." She laughed again, and Abby gaped, appalled. "That comes later, though." She pushed to her feet and looked down her nose at the three terrified girls. She locked eyes with Abby and smiled cordially. "You picked a very special night to come see us. Tonight, Loli's gon' lose her virginity to her Pa."

"Peace be upon him," everyone muttered like Islamic cultists.

Revulsion rose in Abby's throat.

Lori looked at Bobby Jr. "Go get your daddy," she ordered.

Grinning ear-to-ear like a boy egar for the praise helping his mother would bring him, Bobby Jr. threw down his fork and knife, plucked the napkin from his shirt, and pushed away from the table. At the stove, Lyah donned a pink mit, opened the oven, and reached in, grabbing a circular baking pan laden with cornbread. She sat it on the counter, pulled out a knife to cut it with, and began to carve it. Logan, having left Bed alone, took the lid off the pot, dipped the wooden spoon in, then brought it to his lips. Whatever it was, it was red and meaty. "That's really good, Lyah," he commented.

Lyah froze, and a flicker of trepidation crossed Logan's face - he was a man who knew he's committed a grave mistake. "I mean -"

The woman spun on him and held up the knife; it shook in her hand and offended tears welled in her eyes. Logan paled and held his hands up, palms out, in a mollifying gesture."How many times I gotta tell you," Lyah said, her voice breaking with emotion, "my name's not Lyah...my name's Lyle."

Logan's eyes darted from her face to the knife. "I-I'm sorry, Lyle, I-I didn't mean nothin' by it."

Next to Abby, Lyra sobbed softly, and, perhaps it was her latent maternal instincts, Abby wanted to reach out and take the girl into her arms.

Lori twisted around in her chair and glared. "Will you boys cut it out? No fightin' in the kitchen."

For a moment, Lyah didn't move...then she turned back to the cornbread and began cutting it again, mumbling curses under her breath. Logan slunk away with his tail between his legs and stood by the back door. A moment later, Bobby Jr. came in, and when Abby saw who was with him, her blood turned to ice water. The monster...the one who chased her with a chainsaw. It was even uglier in the light: Greasy bangs hung in its Neanderthal face, its jagged yellow teeth crowded its too small mouth, and bumps covered its face.

Even worse was the other thing.

Between them, Lemtard and Bobby Jr. carried a throne-like chair made of bones, each of its two arms ending in a tiny skull. In it was a mummified body clad in a dusty burial suit, its flesh tanned and dried and its head bald save for a white cowlick. Its gaping eye sockets festered with darkness and its mouth, frozen in a silent exclamation, was ringed with blood. Its penis jutted out from a hole in its pants, rigid, brown, and withered in death.

Abby's heart stopped dead and her lungs constricted. They brought the chair to the head of the table and sat it down with careful reverence, Lemtard bending over to kiss the top of the corpse's head. Lori turned and regarded it with wide eyed adoration, a wistful smile playing across her thin lips. "There he is," she said dreamily. "Kids, pay your respects to your father."

Bobby Jr. knelt, leaned over, and to Abby's unending disgust, wrapped his lips around the cadaver's rod. He pulled back with a repellent slurp and looked up at it. "H-Hi, Daddy."

Coming over from the door, Logan got down on one knee, bent, and flicked his tongue over the tip. "Hi, Daddy."

Setting the knife aside, Lyah fell in line behind Logan, and when he moved, she took his place, taking her father's dead dick deep into her mouth and bobbing her head slowly. "Evenin', Daddy," she said.

"Lemtard," Lori said, "go pay your tribute to your daddy."

The giant stood shyly by the sink, its head down and its hair covering its repugnant visage. Abby watched, transfixed, as it came forward, its huge feet scraping the linoleum. Its nails were yellow and jagged and its arms as big around as logs, a network of pulsing blue veins crisscrossing its dirty flesh. Its arms dangled limply at its sides, longer than they should have been, and its hunched shoulders put Abby in mind of a primate, or a caveman two steps down the evolutionary ladder from human. How many generations of inbreeding did it take to produce this? How many clandestine trysts between brother and sister, son and mother, father and daughter? How long had this family been here, growing like a tumor in a malformed body? How many other travellers had they taken from the road?

Those thoughts and others battered Abby's fraying mind as Lemtard sank to its knees. She jerked a glance at Vale, who stared at the proceedings with a look of pained disgust. Silvery tears slid down Lyra's cheeks and her muttered prayers came faster, more abjectly, going from pleas to outright begging.

Lemtard took its father into its mouth and went down with evident relish. It pulled back, licked the withered tip, then got to its feet. Lori turned to Lacy and patted her leg. "Go see your pa."

The girl gazed at the table, her brown eyes flat and empty. She bit pieces of skin from her bottom lip and swallowed; rich red blood dribbled down the lips and chin of her mask and dropped like rain onto the front of her shirt - it was red and white with a big 1 on the front that had been crossed out by magic marker and replaced by a number 2. A ribbon of drool coursed down the corner of her mouth, and she sucked it in as she got stiffly to her feet. Her movements were slow, robotic, and Abby couldn't help wondering if she was born broken, or broken by the carnival of horrors in which she was incubated.

Getting to her knees, Lacy went down with all the enthusiasm of a catatonia patient, then returned to her seat.

Looking around to make sure everyone present had properly shown their respects, Lori got up, walked over in a seductive swish of hips, and knelt. She curled her fingers lovingly around the corpse's dick and stroked it while staring up into its gaping eyes. "Hi, Lincy," she said. She bent, molded her lips to its head, then pushed down, jacking faster now. She pumped up and down, up and down, her head flying back and forth and muffled sounds of wretched pleasure emanating from her throat. Abby turned away, and Vale squeezed his eyes closed to block out the horrid sight.

With a plop, Lori spat him out and licked flecks of dead skin from her lips. "There's never been a man like him," she said, "and there never will be again. He was perfect in every way. All the girls went with they daddy and the boys too. His dick was the biggest, his heart the strongest - he was a god among men and we worship him to this day."

"Log," Bobby Jr. said.

Lyah grinned. "Log."

"Log," Logan agreed.

Liena nodded. "Log."

Lori yanked the dick off and Abby's gorge rose. She got to her feet and held it out to Liena, who swirled her tongue around it, then nipped it between her teeth. Lori laughed merrily, turned, and replaced it. "Your daddy loved that." She looked at Abby and smiled. "This thing here created over fifty children. He got every woman he ever met pregnant, some of 'em three or four times. Let's see, there's…"

Here she launched into a long list of names that made Abby dizzy. God, that many?

"Loan
Liena
Lyra
Liby
Lacy
Lupa
Lemy
Leia
Lizy
Lulu

Lari

Ladd

Loopoo

Rinn

Lyle

Lani

Lops

Lynn III

Racheal

Lupe

Lester

Ligala

Toby
Rochelle
Reina
Bobby Jr
Logan
Lila
Lina
Marla
Gloom
Laika
Vikki
Lillith
Sonette
Panther
Terry
Rosemary
Samantha

Loli

Darna

Bethany

Brianna

Naomi

Mano."

She paused, creased her brow contemplatively, and pursed her lips. "I'm sure there's some I'm forgettin'. Then there's the ones we adopted. Bed...Lyra. Lyra's a replacement. First Lyra drowned in the pond out back when she was two." She looked at Logan. "What was that lesbian girl we took in a few years back?"

"Allie," the man said distastefully.

Lori nodded in remembrance. "She wouldn't let none of the men touch her. Kicked up a mighty big fuss so we had to get rid of her."

"She tasted funny," Liena said with a grimace.

"All them homos do," Logan said.

Standing in front of the stove now like a wild-eyed street preacher in a sandwich board foretelling doom and judgement, Lori fixed Lincoln with an unhealthy look of fanatical devotion. "Lincoln wanted better," she rambled, "he was tired of toiling in anonymity, of being relegated to mediocrity. He set out to carve a niche for himself, a place where he could receive the love, attention, and veneration he so rightfully deserved. He built this family with his bare hands and his big, beautiful, thick, perfect, amazing Log. He is the reason we are here, he is the center of our universe and of our being. He is the captain of this ship, the sun in our darkness, our lord and our savior. We will lay down our lives for his glory, and we will fight to the death to defend his honor."

A starry look crept into her eyes and she drew a nostalgic sigh. "None of you boys will ever be half the man he was." She looked at Lemtard, who regarded its feet with a chastized expression, as though it already knew it fell short of Lincoln's glory. "Even if you were the same, He would be better. He is always bigger, smarter, faster, stronger, kinder. You will never amount to him. Never. You will try. You will fuck everything that walks just like he did, you will have twice as many children, but Lincoln will always be above you."

She hesitated, looked at the stove, then to Logan. "Get the others. Supper's ready." To Lemtard and the others. "Wash up, now."

While Logan went to fetch the others - whoever they might be - Lori took the lid off the pot, sat it aside, and grabbed an armful of bowls from a cabinet. Lyah sat at the table and Lemtard disappeared through the bone-bead doorway, only to remerge seconds later with his chainsaw. He sat on Bed's left, and the little girl scooted closer to Abby. Fear wafted from her in dark waves, and Abby's heart broke. "Sweetie, it's okay" she croaked, the lie clumsy and cumbersome in her mouth. Bed flicked her eyes to Abby, then quickly away like a timid minnow in a bowl. Abby opened her mouth to say more, but trailed off when a woman walked in from the living room.

Seven feet tall with a pale face and black hair covering her eyes, she wore a long black dress that put Abby in mind of Morticia Addams, a long cape, and a necklace made of twine and bones. The hem of her dress covered her feet and gave her the illusion of floating, and when she sat next to Lyah, she still towered over everyone else.

God, were all of them messed up?

Another woman entered, clad in a pale pink dress, her rust red hair pulled back in a pragmatic ponytail. Her face was stony and her lips turned down in a sneer. She, too, was tall, and solidly built, her arms toned and muscular and her shoulders broad. If Lyah was a man who looked like a woman, she was a woman who looked like a man. She started to sit, but Lori stopped her. "Laika, hold on, I want you to do somethin', okay?"

"What?" Laika grumbled in a thick Russian accent.

Lori looked at Vale, and when she spoke, Abby's heart stopped. "Take that nigger out to the shed. We don't need him."

The Russian glared at Vale. "You want me to kill?"

"Yes."

"No!" Abby blurted.

Laika blew a puff of air that stirred her bangs. "Alright. Will kill black man." She came around the end of the table, and Vale screamed against his muzzle.

"Don't, God, please!" Abby screamed.

"You hush up, Listeria," Lori said.

Grabbing Vale by the back of the neck, Laika slammed his face against the table and untied his wrists one handed. The stark terror in his eyes pushed her over the edge and she started to cry. "Don't kill him, please," she moaned.

Laika dragged Vale to his feet and manhandled him to the back door. Abby yanked at her bonds, determined to break out and help him, and was it her imagination, or did she feel give? The Russian leaned over and turned the knob, and Vale pushed back against her. Snarling, she bashed his face into the doorframe, and he went limp. Abby screamed, and Laika wrestled Vale out into the night, the door slamming closed behind them with grim finality. In that instant, Abby knew she would never see her friend again...and that she was utterly alone in the world.

Weeping disconsolately, she pulled at the restraints.

"Listeria," Lori said in a reprimanding tone, "honey, you -"

"That's not my name!" Abby screamed. "It's a disease!"

Lori's face darkened, and for the first time that night, Abby saw the demon she knew lurked within. Bending slightly forward at the waist, eyes burning like hellfire, she roared, "WE'RE RUNNIN' OUT OF L NAMES!" Lemtard, sitting at his father's right hand, cringed, and one corner of Lyah's mouth turned up in a knowing smirk. "You try comin' up with some. I'm sick of it. Why you think I named her Bed?"

Visions of the fate that awaited Vale ran through Abby's head, and she let out a shriek of rage, frustration, and hopelessness.

If Flagg was here, he'd make them let her go. He'd save Vale, her, and their baby and take them away.

But he wasn't.

Because he was probably dead.

Her scream turned to a kneading wail. She was trapped and there was absolutely nothing she could do. She liked to think she was strong, but she was not; she was full of talk and empty bluster and always had been. She projected strength and self-assurance, but inside she was weak and vulnerable. Vale was going to die, she was going to die, and her baby was going to die. A woman has one purpose in this world and that is to bare and nurture life. She failed, because the life God entrusted her with would never come to pass and it was her fault. She would never get to hold her baby, never pinch its chubby little feet, never get to hear it giggle or see it smile or hear it call her Mommy. All the promise and potential of her child's life would end right here, in a dirty, stuffy kitchen in the deep back woods of Texas.

Because she was weak.

I'm sorry, she thought to her baby, Mommy's so sorry.

Her tears came harder, faster, and more bitter.

And Bed, too, began to cry.