Evan can't comprehend what kind of monster he's looking at. There's so many bright neon colors it blinds him. And then the monster starts to talk.

"Oh stop screaming, you big dork! It's just me." The monster says.

Evan knows right away who's talking, and can hardly handle his own surprise.

"A-Andy?" He asks. There's a little excitement in his voice too. He wonders if she notices.

"Who else?" Andy says.

Yep, it's her, alright. Andy and all her DayGlo clothing- a yellow top with blue sleeves, matching blue socks and pants that make Evan dizzy just looking at their texture. A green purse is wrapped around her waist and her hair is currently styled into a spiky mohawk, one with just as many colors as her clothing,The only thing different about Andy since the last time Evan saw her are her piercings- the large hoops in her earring aren't new, but the nose ring is, as is one on her lip. It's still Andy, though, and Evan thinks she looks totally awesome.

"What are you doing here?" Evan asks. It comes out harsher than he meant.

It's not the first time she's surprised him like this. Back when he originally moved to Atlanta, who else but Andy showed up as one of his neighbors? And that was just the start of the troubles that would follow.

"Am I not allowed to pay my best friend a visit?" She asks, half-joking, half-serious.

"N-no, of course not. I'm just surprised, that's all. Did you drive all the way here?"

"No. I walked. Of course I drove, Evan!" She snarks.

"You know what I meant!" Evan says. It hasn't even been five minutes, and they're already butting heads again.

"You're right, I did know. It's just funny seeing you get mad. " Andy admits.

Why was she like this? It's exhausting.

"You haven't even texted me ONCE since you got here. I thought maybe something bad had happened. I had nothing better to do, so I wanted to check on you. You know, make sure these Ohioans are treating you right. If not, I can knock some heads in." Andy says.

She's right. He has put off texting her. He's tried- drafting up countless messages before erasing them. But in all honesty, he wondered if he even needed to. They wouldn't be living close to each other anymore. But then that thought made him feel guilty. Andy was his best friend, no, she still is, she just reminds him of the bad old days in Atlanta. The days he is trying to forget it. But does that mean I should try and forget Andy? He questions, but doesn't have a proper answer. Not yet. There's another element to her words that bothers him- Andy always acts like she's his babysitter. He can take care of himself.

"I think I can handle myself, Andy." Evan assures. "Haven't you seen I've been working out?" He tries to flash a smirk, but probably just looks like an idiot.

"That remains to be seen. And as for the working out part. Yes, you look like a total gym-bro now, Evan. You should be proud." Andy rolls her eyes.

He stares at her for a second. Is that a compliment? The look on her face indicates it's definitely not.

"Well I have been drinking protein shakes." Evan teases.

"Let me guess- not the green ones?" Andy asks.

"Of course not. That's like drinking a whole cupful of well, you know-"

He doesn't say the word this time, but Andy knows what he means. "I feel like THAT probably tastes better." she says.

"Maybe. I'm never trying it again."

"Really? Because you won't believe what I brought!" Andy says.

She reaches into her purse and starts digging for something. Evan's heart starts to race. Surely she can't mean- No. No way. She wouldn't do that. Wait, she totally would.

"Andy! Don't!" He screams, in a voice loud enough to startle even her.

But it's too late, for in hands, he sees her pull out a familiar can.

"Andy, what the hell have you done?" He yells. He feels sweaty.

Andy starts laughing. "Relax, I'm teasing you again! Monster Blood's impossible to get these days anyway. Think you have to go on the dark web to get some. Not that I haven't tried-"

"What about the can?" Evan points to the blue one in her hand, on which he sees the word MONSTER BLOOD written in dripping green letters.

"Oh, this?" Andy asks. She starts to shake it. "It's empty. Just a souvenir from the good old days."

Evan listens intently. She's not lying. There's nothing in there at all.

"It was just a joke-" Andy starts, before Evan cuts her off.

"Well it's not funny. I've had enough of your jokes." He snaps, full of genuine anrger. He hasn't felt this mad in a long time.

"You used to be a lot more fun. You know, when we were kids." Andy says, looking upset he's taking her prank so seriously.

"People change Andy. I haven't been a kid since I was twelve years old. From the first time we opened that Monster Blood and my life went to hell.

Evan feels all the thoughts he'd kept holding onto come spilling out. Andy looks surprised. He's never opened up like this before. Usually, when they were together, they played a long-running game of "pretend that never happened". Unfortunately, the same rule applied for their failed romance, if you could call it that. The less said about it the better, really but it hangs in the air like a deep gray rain cloud, making a lot of future conversations awkward. It was why he struggled so much with Lucy.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cause any pain." Andy says. He can tell she means it.

"It's fine," he mutters. "I did get a little too upset. So, your parents don't mind you being here?" Evan asks her.

"Of course not. You know them." Andy mumbles, barely audible but Evan can tell he shouldn't push the issue further.

In actuality, he knew very little about Andy's family at all, but what he did know wasn't very good.

"So.. this is your place now? Pretty bitching." Andy says, examining the place.

He can't tell if she's being sarcastic, because she's staring right at a wall that's seen better days. Spider-webs cover the top like a thin mist. A black spider, about the size of a quarter, is currently hard at work on a new web's construction. He has to stop Andy from scooping the arachnid up and petting it like it's a cat. Ugh, cats. Now there's another thing he hates.

"Mom says it's a fixer-upper. All the houses in Dark Falls are pretty old. You can check out my room if you want, it's right over here. Not completely set up yet though. Got a lot to unpack" Evan says.

Really, it was a bit of a mess, but Andy never cares about that kind of thing. Or if she does, she doesn't show it. She did sometimes call him a "trash goblin" though, so there was that. He leads her down the hall, the floor making eerie creaking noises beneath their feet. It really does feel like a haunted house, doesn't it?

"Did you bring Cuddles?" Andy asks. "I have to say hello to that little guy."

"Of course. He's probably still sleeping."

Sure enough, there the little hamster is, not doing a whole lot, but Andy coos and admires him all the same. Evan wonders if it's Andy's own guilt for being the one to feed the original Cuddles Monster Blood in the first place. She'd never admit that though.

"You know, part of me hoped you were living in the Dead House. Not that I wanted you to die or anything, but it would have been pretty cool." Andy tells him.

"You know about the Dead House?" Evan asks. He's surprised. He figured only the residents would know about it. Then again, something like that is right up Andy's alley.

"Duh. Everyone knows about the Dead House." She says, pausing as Evan doesn't respond. "You really don't know?" she asks, a little surprised.

"Only what I've heard from around here- sounds like your typical haunted house." Evan says.

"Oh, it's far from typical, Evan. I can't believe you never heard it. It popped up on one of the supernatural show I used to like- there was this family- the Bensons, they inherited the Dead House from a long-lost great-uncle of the dad. The plot twist? The great-uncle didn't actually exist. It was all just a ploy for the residents of Dark Falls to lure the Bensons to the Dead House- where they planned to brutally MURDER the entire family."

"The town wanted to KILL them? Why? Some kind of murder cult?" Evan asks. He thought he'd heard a similar story once.

"No, well, maybe, but no, that's not what the Bensons said happened. He claimed the people in Dark Falls were not human but the LIVING DEAD, turned into creatures that fed off human blood to survive after a horrible gas leak killed the entire town. They had this evil real estate guy, he was a zombie too, lure people in with promises of a new house. Instead, they were killed and turned into undead creatures themselves. And this cycle would repeat."

Evan feels a chill at hearing this story. Lucy had mentioned a gas leak, hadn't she? And with everything Ricky had told him- about families being lured to Dark Falls for an unknown reason. If something similar had happened before, then it was worth looking into. But it just all sounds so crazy. The people in Dark Falls were a bit odd from what he'd seen. Definitely quiet. But were they vicious, undead blood-suckers? Maybe. Maybe not.

"And what happened to the Bensons?" Evan asked.

"They actually survived. The whole family. They escaped Dark Falls. Then the father, Jack Benson wrote a story about it. Welcome to Dead House, it was called. Total Stephen King rip-off, but it was entertaining, though a lot of it was fictionalized." Andy says.

"And so what does that mean? It didn't happen?" Evan asks.

"No, he swore it did. All of them did, but you know the deal, nobody believed them. They blamed the whole thing on a mass hallucination and authorities couldn't find any proof to back their story. No real estate guy. No undead. Nothing."

"Damn." Evan says bluntly. "And that's where I'm living now, huh? Great."

"Yup. If it's true, that is." Andy says.

"Do you think it is?" Evan asks.

"I dunno. I think so, yeah. Nobody believed us about the Monster Blood so.. We kind of have an obligation to believe that kind of stuff, don't we?" Andy asks, she means it rhetorically, but Evan agrees anyway. He hasn't thought about it like that before, but Andy has a point and it makes him feel better for agreeing to help Ricky. He'd lived through a horrible experience and no doubt there were so many former kids who had while they went unbelieved. Yeah, maybe he does have an obligation to help those kids, no matter how scary things might be.

"I'm kinda glad you're here, Andy. Because I think I just might need your help." Evan tells her.

"Oh, yeah? What's the assignment?" Andy asks.

"I'll warn you- it might involve hunting some monsters." Evan explains, and can't help but smirk.

"You had me at monster." Andy smiles back.

Evan explains the whole situation to Andy, who isn't hesitant to agree to help investigate. In fact, she also has little intention to leave Dark Falls at all. I go where you go, she said, though in a much more crass way. There's a reason she's his best friend. Then she teases him for being dumb enough to be brainwashed into a murder town and fall head over heels for a girl who might be an an evil monster. He still has faith Lucy is innocent. Of course, there's also an unspoken agreement he's just signed that whatever follows will take a bit of trouble. He's okay with that, he thinks.

"If we want to hunt monsters, then we need some muscle." Andy says.

"Am I not enough?" Evan asks.

"No." Andy says

They walk out the door, where Evan sees a car parked in the driveway. How had he managed to miss that? Then he stops, seeing a familiar face in the passenger's seat, taking up nearly the entirety of it.

"Oh no! Andy. Tell me you're joking!" Evan says in disbelief.

"It's no joke, Evan. Figured you could use a hand." A deep male voice bellows from the car.

The figure grins at him, and Evan isn't sure how to feel, for sitting before him is none other than Conan Barber.

"What's HE doing here?" Evan asks.

"I thought you'd want both your friends here. Conan was happy to tag along" Andy says.

Conan doesn't drop his grin. He looks like he always does- even years later, his face has barely changed, though he certainly looks closer to Conan the Barbarian than he ever did- broad-shouldered and with enough muscles to put Evan to shame. When Evan said he hadn't died that day with the blue blobs, he was telling the truth, and yet not at the same time. See, just like Cuddles, this Conan wasn't quite the original. That one that had spent Evan's childhood bullying him mercilessly had been brutally swallowed that day. Only one version of Conan had survived, miraculously, if that was the right word, unlike the blobs that had been totally eradicated.

No, this Conan was what Kermit had nicknamed "Blue Conan", a clone of the original composed of whatever material the Underwater Fighting Force had been made of. In comparison, Blue Conan was a little bit nicer than the original had been, if one could even believe that, just way thirstier, and well, monstrous. In a lot of ways. They'd even become something of friends, but it was hard to move past how the first Conan had bullied him. He knew Blue Conan technically wasn't responsible for all that, but Evan still clings on to that anger.

"And how are you going to help, Conan?" Evan asks.

Conan laughs. "What do you think? I'm going to help you break into Dead House. Then we're going to open up all that Monster Blood Andy has stored in the back."