Anita Lesnicki hated the trees. Don't get her wrong, she loathed the long, unmown grass and the gravestones too, but she really, really hated the trees. A midnight stroll through a cemetery wouldn't be most folks idea of a good time, well not unless you were a goth, she cast a glance in the direction of her old friend Colin Gray's final resting place, before quickly snapping back away. Anita had returned to Devil's Kettle after a decade of running, and she didn't have moonlight to burn.

The waning moon above was essential for the ritual but so too were the skulls carried safely in her duffle bag. Two fools who actually believed that they could run from the Beast. Both used his terrible power for their own ends, but like all the others, forgot to check the small print on their ritual sacrifice and ended up on the Devil's shit list, and ultimately as Anita's offering to him.

The past ten years had not been kind to Anita, she felt broken in every sense of the word, but of course being constantly hunted by Feds would do that to you. They believed that she was a serial killer, and hell they were right, well sort of. She did murder the two scumbags in her literal bag, and the entirety of the indie rock band Low Shoulder, but nobody gave a shit about them anymore, not since their pact with Satan ended. No, the Feds hunted her for brutally murdering five teenagers that attended her High School, including her boyfriend Chip and her best friend, Jennifer.

It was true that Anita killed Jennifer, but she had to. Low Shoulder had inadvertently fused her soul with something evil, something primal, something that only cared about sating the emptiness inside it. Heh, maybe that's why Jennifer and the demon worked so well together, but no, Jen killed Chip and the others. Anita had no choice but to end her life, she had to stop the bloodshed. Shame that she was caught in the act by Jennifer's mom.

During the last decade while Anita was busy trying to find a warm meal and a job that wouldn't alert the authorities, Jennifer's mother Erica had packed up and left Devil's Kettle in an effort to outrun her heartache and move forward. Anita always tried to keep tabs on her, especially as she, herself began to learn more about the occult, magic, and demons. Blood was a very powerful thing indeed, and a mother could, in theory at least hold the most important key to her daughter's return. Still, Anita lacked the raw power and knowledge to exploit such a connection back then.

The nightmares didn't help but they did make her more desperate. Every night, Anita would dream that she was confined to the inside of a wooden box and trapped under six feet of soil, just like Jennifer was. She'd try to scream but all that would come out of her mouth was spiky, putrid gore that would end up boiling through her skin and seeping back into her internal organs again.

Anita yearned for her best friend back, not the demon that took her away but the absolute bitchy hoe bag that made Anita feel alive. At the end of it all, the worst part of the last ten years wasn't the cold, or the hunger, or even the time she stole a book from a blood sorcerer, who then tried to sacrifice her to his ancient blood god. The worst part was not having Jen there with her, giving her shit and making her laugh, like she had throughout their entire lives. Anita didn't even try to hide the emptiness anymore, she acknowledged her loss with the same sorrow that she usually reserved for Chip.

So when Anita heard that Erica was exhuming Jennifer's coffin to have it brought out to the West Coast and be closer to her and her new baby son, Anita knew the timing was as good as it would ever be. She hauled ass back to Devil's Kettle, picked up her sacrifices on the way, and even finished reading the blood sorcery book for the fourth time. Anita knew she had to get this right. Anita knew she had to make this right.

The grave was exposed now, its former soil and dirt now ruining the resting places of others. Well, that was very Jennifer.

A sleep deprived young cemetery worker sucked on a vape pen as he leaned comfortably on Jennifer's casket.

"Can I help you, Miss?" he asked curtly, before adding "We closed up hours ago"

There was no point in lying at this stage so Anita simply pointed at the coffin.

"She was my friend... I just wanted to see her one more time"

Probably realizing how disrespectful he was being, the cemetery worker removed his ass from the lid of the box and cast his eyes down in shame.

"I... can't leave her until my supervisor gets here... but you could take a moment, if you like"

Anita nodded gratefully before moving closer, she glanced down at the vape pen dangling from a chain on the man's neck. Was that? It couldn't be...

"Is that the blueberry muffin Toast'em Vape?"

"Uh yeah, you wanna hit?"

He held out the vape pen for Anita. She approached him slowly, she was going to enjoy this. At the last second though, he yanked it away from her with a dirtbag smile on his lips.

"You'll have to pay the titty tax first though"

Of course. Of fucking course she couldn't just have something nice with no bullshit.

Anita lunged at the man, taking him completely off guard, he fell over like a sack of potatoes, and she immediately struck his head hard against a nearby gravestone. Maybe he would live, maybe, but it would be a long time before his titty tax would be reinstated. Anita snapped the chain from the man's neck and took the longest drag from the vape. Ah Toast'ems, her childhood rolled back behind her eyes and took her brain on a journey to happier times.

Sandbox love. That's how her and Jen started. Sandbox love never dies. Neither do Toast'ems. Needy... Anita remembered sharing her Toast'ems with Jennifer when Erica forgot to pack little Jen a snack for school. Jennifer was so polite back then, so small and sad. She could easily twist Anita around her little finger from day one.

Enough stalling, Anita shoved the vape pen into her jeans for later, and then focused on the task at hand. Using what would probably be the last of her unnatural strength, she tore the lid off of Jennifer's coffin.

Anita retched at what remained of Jennifer Check. She, of course knew that bodies decomposed but it seemed that, this time she wasn't as prepared to smell it... To see the girl she knew from the sandbox, to see her broken skeleton, her rotted flesh, and the congealed fat that she was lying in. It all just made her feel sick. Anita had put Jennifer in that box, she had to, had to puncture her heart, destroying the demon inside, but she still murdered her best friend, and she couldn't forgive herself for that.

There would be time to hate herself later, there always was. For now, Anita opened her duffle bag and removed the freshly flayed skulls, placing them gently beside Jennifer. She then lifted out her stolen blood sorcery book and opened it to the relevant chapter, the page entitled 'For when the Dead walk the Earth'

With a waned moon watching her from afar, Anita produced her shitty little ripoff Swiss Army Knife, she opened the blade and pledged allegiance to the Lord of Hell.

"Samael, thee who art of the Morningstar, cast out by the False God... Ye who giveth power to the powerless in exchange for a mere boon... I bring you offerings, the earthly remains of two mortals who broke your terms and spread the most heinous lies, boasting that they had bested you"

Ugh, Lucifer must've been such a little fuck boy, needing constant boot licking to settle his tiny dick disorder.

"I beg of you, my Lord!" Anita cried "As my reward, let the soul of Jennifer Check return to her body, and let that body return to me!"

Anita mumbled another additional enchantment before finally slicing through her own wrist. Her blood poured out from the fountain that was now her veins, splattering Jennifer's decomposing corpse. What was left of Jen's skin drank it up like an old lady drinking cold orange juice on a hot day, but Jennifer didn't move. She was supposed to move and make noises, the rite had stated that pretty clearly.

This was the only shot Anita had at this, so either Jen was going to come to her, or she was going to go to Jen. She opened up her other wrist and let the dead body bathe in even more blood.

Was it just Anita or was the skeleton growing new flesh?

Everything felt like it was slipping away from her. Anita was so tired, she needed... needed... needed...

The world swallowed her whole, the moon stood in judgment of her sins, the wind bit at her face, and the trees, well they just pointed and laughed at her desperation. Fuck, Anita really hated the trees.

"Jennifer" she whimpered before finally letting everything fade away and accepting her sleep.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

"It's not that big of a deal, Needy"

"It's a huge deal, Jen, you want me to..." Needy conspiratorially lowered her voice "Take your virginity"

Jennifer gently took Needy's hand and looked down at her with those beautiful, soothing blue eyes.

"I'd rather my first time be with someone I actually give a shit about, instead of Roman, or Jonas, or Craig, or any of those other itchy dicked, ass pickers"

Needy couldn't help but giggle, she was so afraid but Jen always knew what to say to make her laugh. The truth was that she actually wanted to be Jennifer's first, but was terrified of what that meant, of what it would do to their friendship. Would Jennifer even like her afterward? But on the other hand, what if she liked her too much? What if they became gay? Needy's mom would go completely ape crap crazy if that happened.

All of her anxiety faded away instantly with a surprise kiss from Jennifer, Needy couldn't stop her own lips from responding in kind. It just felt so right. She always loved kissing Jen when they were practicing and playing girlfriend boyfriend. The taller girl always made her feel like a Princess from one of those old Disney movies, and for just a few minutes, Needy felt like she was the most important person in the world.

This felt completely different though. Jennifer was intense, almost aching with hunger. Deep lustful hunger, all just for Needy.

Needy's arms eased around Jen's waist, she pulled Jen closer to her, so close that Needy could feel her best friend's heartbeat racing against her own.

Oh, her mother and God could both go screw each other. Jennifer's Body was the only religion that Needy wanted.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

Coming to, weak as shit, in the tall grass and dirt. Anita felt like a fucking idiot. Blood Sorcery, really? She actually tried to use Blood Sorcery to resurrect her bully best friend/ first time. What a fucking cliche.

Well if it was going to work, she would've known about it by now. At least her mom and the rest of the Sisters of Saint Rose could sleep easy tonight. Shame Anita wouldn't. She lifted herself unsteadily to her feet, bandaging up her wrists with some old cotton gauze from her bag.

Well, with resurrection out of the question, Anita supposed that the only thing left to her was closure. She forced herself to look at the open coffin, at her dead best friend, and accept that there was no miracle fix to their tragedy.

Jennifer's remains were gone from the casket.

"Oh fuck" were the only words Anita could rationally think before descending into blind panic.

From behind, Anita heard a guttural, animal-like roar, right before something barrelled into her, knocking her into the exposed grave.

Looking up in pure fear, she saw Jennifer's decayed corpse staring back at her in furious lucidity, her jaw had become dislodged and her eyes were gooey pink blobs, trying so hard to heal, but Anita could sense that they could already see her.

Jennifer leapt into the grave, falling directly on top of Anita, and started to paw at the still living girl's face.

"Jen?" Anita tried

Surprisingly, Jennifer actually cradled Anita in her arms and stroked at her face with the back of one boney hand. It was bizarre and macabre, and the smell of death did nothing to reassure Anita but at the same time, this was Jen, back with her, so Anita held her right back.

"It's me, Jen, it's okay, it's me" Anita sighed, contentedly

Jen tried to talk but all that would come out was painful sounding, gruesome, raw throat noises, like her larynx had been mauled by a Wolf.

"It's Needy, don't worry" Anita softly reassured her

"Neeeeedeeeee?" The dead woman's voice scraped out like fingernails on a chalkboard

"Yeah" Anita smiled, she had Jen again, admittedly she was more than a little fucked up, but hey that could be said for the both of them. The important thing was that Jennifer was alive again, er, undead again

Jen raised one skeletal finger to Anita's lips. Anita shivered as it slipped inside her mouth.

Jennifer, much too quickly for Anita's taste, took her finger back, raised that hand far behind her own head, and before Anita could even put two and two together, made a fist.

The first punch felt like being hit with a slab of concrete, powerful and uncaring. The second, she could feel bits of Jennifer's skin start to grow back around the knuckles, only to come off again upon impact. The third, hit her in the throat and she started to choke. Jen didn't care, maybe Jen never cared, maybe Anita was right all those years ago, and her longing for a nostalgic fantasy would end in Jennifer's grave... Their grave.

"You! Stupid! Fucking! Cunt!" Jennifer's voice was coming back to her as she continued to beat the living hell out of Anita

"You! Killed! Me! Dead!"

Anita was starting to lose consciousness again, she had lost so much blood already, now it was impossible for her to breathe. She wasn't surprised that she was going to die, she was actually kind of looking forward to it, after so many shitty ass years on the road. She knew it was time to rest. Maybe Jennifer could forgive her if Anita took her place in death.

Darkness briefly took over before Anita felt herself being propelled upward and hitting the grass, hard.

"One! Two! Three! Four! Staying alive! Staying alive!" Jennifer screamed, while giving Anita chest compressions

Mister Wroblewski, their old biology teacher, taught them that one for resuscitation. Anita didn't think Jen ever paid attention in that class, well in any classes. Anita felt Jennifer's decomposed lips touch hers, breathing foul, stale air into her lungs and clearing them.

Anita coughed so hard that she felt something twist inside her and she hurled blood and coffee all over the disturbed ground. She wouldn't last much longer without a transfusion, but she was still alive for now. Anita looked up, bleary-eyed at her ironic savior.

Jennifer Check was slumped next to her own coffin. She was still mostly skeleton but Anita could see flesh knitting back together and internal organs fighting to work underneath.

Jen found her jaw and painfully reattached it to the rest of her face. She still looked like hell.

"First you betray me, stab me, kill me... Now you bring me back like this" Jennifer raised her skeletal hand as an example of her current state of post life "You must've really fucking hated me"

"Oh screw you, Jen" Anita croaked out "I had to kill you to destroy your demon... I brought you back... Because... Because I give a shit about you"

"Oh, really?" Jen scoffed "Because to the best of my motherfucking knowledge, you left me in the ground for years!"

Dread rushed through Anita's mind. Had Jennifer been conscious all this time? All ten years of her death?

"Yeah! I could feel everything!" Jennifer answered the question that Anita hadn't asked "I felt my body rot away, my tits and ass leaking out, and I couldn't even fucking scream!"

"Jen... I'm sorry"

"Save it!" Jen yelled, before limping away

"Please..." Anita moaned, struggling to get to her feet again, before faceplanting once more, back into the dirt. She didn't have the energy to run after Jennifer.

At the very least, her old friend didn't have her demon anymore, so she wasn't a threat to Devil's Kettle. Anita wondered if she would see Chip again in an afterlife, before quickly coming to her senses. Her Chip was in Heaven, she was headed to Hell... That would never work out.

To her great surprise, Anita found herself being moved onto her back by a somewhat embarrassed zombie Jen.

"You were super vile and I still don't forgive you... but I am a better friend than you ever were, so... Ugh, let me take you to the hospital"

Well that was unexpected. Anita felt so dizzy but shook her head anyway.

"I've got some blood in my car... Would you help me to it?"

Jen nodded, her anger simmering just below the surface. She hauled Anita back to her feet and helped her walk in the direction that Anita pointed.

"Jennifer and Needy, yes indeedy, gonna get some blood but let's be greedy, let's down Needy, oh that's seedy" Jennifer cheered, half heartedly

"I go by Anita now" Anita mumbled, feeling light headed

Anita felt Jennifer pull her closer, almost protectively, before whispering, bitterly "You'll always be hella needy to me"

Jennifer did, in fact help Anita back to her piece of shit station wagon. She had stolen it a few days ago from a sweet elderly couple who pulled over to give her directions. They were headed cross country to Knott's Scary Farm, Anita still hoped that they had found some way to make it.

Inside the station wagon, Anita hooked herself up to two bags of AB negative, and sighed happily as it flowed into her veins. When she opened her eyes again, she could see that Jen was staring at the bags like she used to stare at big greasy burgers when they were young and she was forced onto another new experimental diet by her asshole aunt. It was time for a distraction.

"So... you were awake the entire time?"

Jennifer sighed and actually rolled her eyes. Jen unwilling to gossip? What was the world coming to? Anita opened the glove box and scavenged around for some cigarettes. Only finding one, she handed it over to Jen as a peace offering. The ex demon looked quite bemused. Anita lit her up, and Jen took a slow and steady drag.

"I was awake until my eyes turned to mush, after that everything was dark but I still knew where I was, everything felt so fucking claustrophobic... I could feel bugs and rats crawling over me, ripping off pieces of me to feed their babies... I could feel those tiny bits of myself in their little stomachs, being digested and shat out"

"You must've been marked by the demon that took your body" Anita explained, as best as she could "When it died, Hell didn't want you because it already had demon Jen, but the other twenty two after lives could still see its mark staining your soul"

"Twenty two?"

"Yeah, turns out Hell is exclusively for demons, almost everybody else just kind of gets placed in a restful afterlife tailored to who they were in this life"

"How do you know that?"

Anita felt herself start to blush and she knew that she needed to claw back some semblance of restraint... Oh fuck it, fuck it all.

"Because I've spent so very long trying to get you back"

Jen's eyes widened for a moment in surprise before finally returning to a more cynical glare. She took a shorter puff of her cigarette before pausing, considering, and finally coming to the possibility.

"I guess... You regretted killing me?

"Every day, Jen! Every day for the last ten years!"

"Ten years!" Jennifer cried "I've been dead for ten years!"

Oh shit, Anita didn't mention that, and it's not like Jennifer had a fucking calender underground.

Jen went silent for several minutes, long enough for Anita to finish up her amateur blood transfusion. She felt awake but still very weak and so very hungry. She had never sacrificed her blood before, making it incredibly potent and desirable... Virgin blood by ancient tradition. This would hurt for a while yet as the Great Beast licked his lips.

Human/Demon Hybrid blood was a delicacy in some parts of the world, Anita wondered if it was the same in Hell.

"Is my mom okay?" Jen eventually asked

Anita had never heard Jennifer worry about her mother before, but her voice was shaking now.

"Yeah Jen, that's actually why you were being dug up, your mom wanted to move you out to California to be closer to her and her..." Maybe Anita shouldn't say any more, Jen never liked to share, in life or death.

"Her new family" Jen guessed, tears running down her still skeletal eye holes.

Anita wanted to wrap her arms around Jen and tell her that she wasn't so easy to replace, but coming from her literal murderer, maybe that wasn't such a great idea, so she simply settled for "You have a little baby brother"

Jen wiped her tears away on the sleeve of the dress she was buried in. A dress that was probably once the height of fashion but was now as torn and decayed as its owner.

"Yay" Jennifer murmured, before coughing up some dirt "Needy... Anita, whatever the fuck, can we just... Can we just go... Maybe get something to eat, I'm starving"

Anita nodded, Jen was in worse shape than she was, shaking off a decade of being dead would do that to you. Anita tried to hold Jennifer's hand but Jen pulled away from her touch like it was sheer pain.

With no other option left open to her, Anita put the key into the ignition and turned. The car engine shook to life, the final resurrection of the night.

Pulling out of the graveyard and driving back into town, Anita noticed just how much Devil's Kettle had changed in ten years. It had two malls for shit's sake, a few trendy restaurants, an arcade, a proper swimming pool that wasn't a safety risk. New houses, New people. Bland as all fuck but ultimately thriving.

Anita noticed Jen staring disdainfully at the progress outside. The living dead girl probably believed that the town would collapse without her. To see it doing well for itself most likely hurt more than the boxcutter that punctured her heart.

Not wanting to draw more attention to their presence than a strange, rusty ass station wagon in a nice town already would, Anita pulled into a roadside diner, just outside of town. She threw Jennifer a hoodie from the back seat.

"You'll need to cover up your..."

"Don't rub it in, Lesnicki" Jen snapped, before pulling the garment on and putting the hood up, partially obscuring her face from view.

The two, slowly and painfully left the station wagon and shambled toward the diner. Like most of the new editions to Devil's Kettle, the small building looked shiny and boring. Devoid of any personality or history. A corporate chain from the big city, the truest agents of Satan.

Inside, everything seemed to be normal enough. Truckers drinking coffee, a couple of students cramming math and blueberry pie into their bodies, and a lone biker, just sitting by himself, toasting a mug of hot cocoa to someone on a video call.

All of these people immediately stopped when they caught sight of Anita and Jennifer. They suddenly turned hostile, agitated, and even a little scared. They couldn't have recognized them, could they? Anita didn't know any of their faces. Unless maybe the cops had circulated her photo. She did steal the car in Wisconsin, maybe they put her journey together and worked out that she was coming home. Maybe Anita hadn't been as careful as she thought she was.

The heavily pregnant waitress behind the counter huffed.

"You can come in but you'll have to pay up front... And don't you dare use any of your poison here... Or try to sell any of it!"

Oh yeah, Anita forgot that they were as pale as ghosts, frail and disheveled... The waitress thought they were drug addicts. Everyone just thought they were drug addicts, that was good, fucked up, but good.

Anita nodded and handed over some bills.

"Can we get a pot of coffee, two burgers and some fries?" She asked as politely as she could manage with her head still spinning

"And a strawberry milkshake" Jennifer added

The waitress counted out the bills, then recounted them, held them up to the light, and then finally went into the back, leaving them to pick their table.

"Fucking bitch" Jennifer grumbled, and found a booth in the back, next to a broken jukebox.

"I can't exactly blame her" Anita defended, weakly "I mean, would you trust us?"

"Ugh, trust has nothing to do with this shit, Needy, these fuckers are up on their high horses, looking down on us, they get wasted like the rest of us, but when they see two people that are a little bit more raggedy than they are, they judge and hate and fear... What does that tell you?"

Anita shrugged, she wasn't ready for one of Jennifer's patented lectures.

"They judge us because we look poor as fuck, hoe" Jennifer concluded "They judge us because we look homeless, because we represent what they know they're just three mistakes away from becoming"

"In fairness, we also look half dead, Jen"

Jennifer slammed her fist against the jukebox "That's not the fucking point, damnit!"

Looking down at her hand, Jennifer paid close attention to the still healing tissue she just destroyed, and the skeleton hand underneath, which looked broken in two places.

"It doesn't even hurt" Jen mumbled, before limping off to the bathroom.

"You better not use in there!" the waitress warned

"Eat shit, you goddamn Sow" Jen cursed, under her breath

Jen always did have a way with words. Fuck, this was ridiculous. Anita pulled out her newly acquired blueberry muffin Toast'em vape and took a hit.

If Anita was being completely honest with herself, she had to admit that she never really expected this to work... The reason she left the blood bags in the car before the sacrifice was because a part of her wanted to die of blood loss and be reunited with her Jen in one of the afterlives. Jen would forgive her, tell her that she was right to kill that thing in her body because it wasn't actually her but instead was 'Balthazar: The Great Scourge of Hell' and that she's been safe and sound, drinking red wine and banging cuties for ten years.

Instead Jen was back to life and hated Anita more than ever. She and the demon were one, because of course they were, and when Anita killed that demon, she also killed her friend, her Jennifer, the girl she fell in love with all those years ago. Ugh, Anita had no idea what to do now. Jen must've spent every second in her grave dreaming about killing Anita, hating her with every fiber of her being... But then why did she stop beating her? Why did Jen help her back to the station wagon? Why didn't she snap Anita's neck and leave her in that open grave?

Hell is a teenage girl... That's what Needy used to say... But Anita was starting to wonder if Hell is just being left alone, by yourself, for years on end. Maybe Jennifer just didn't want to be on her own any more.

Speak of the former Succubus, Anita spotted Jennifer chatting up a trucker by the bathroom. It looked like she was saying all the right things, and hiding her face, just well enough. The trucker was interested, real interested. Anita had to shut this down.

Remembering a side effect of her little enchantment from earlier, Anita willed the plasma in her body to make contact with the plasma in Jennifer's and force her to come back to the table.

Nothing happened. Jennifer ran her now bandaged hands carefully up the trucker's neck and softly across his face. Anita slammed her own hand down on the sharp, exposed metal edge of the table. Blood burst forth from her palm and across the booth.

Jennifer immediately stopped caressing the trucker, and almost like someone flipped a switch in her head, she walked, sort of robotically, back to the table. Her face gaining fear with every step that wasn't truly her own.

"What the shit was that!?"

"You're connected to me... by blood" Anita explained "My blood flows through you, it gives you strength... You don't need to kill to feed anymore, and if you try to, I can stop you with that same life blood"

Jen stared daggers through Anita's skull. "I just wanted a fuck"

"Oh..."

"Don't 'Oh' me bitch, it's not easy convincing someone to screw you when you look like George Bush's wrinkled asshole"

Another wave of uncomfortable silence washed over them.

"When was the last time you got laid?" Jennifer suddenly asked

Nope, no way was Anita talking about this with Jennifer.

"Uh, awhile ago" Anita dismissed, nonchalantly

"Oh come on, Needy, if you're gonna sabotage my sexual misadventure, you should at least tell me about your own... Let's start with his name?"

God Damn It!

"... Marta... Her name was Marta"

"Hot damn!" Jennifer beamed "I knew there was a little bit of a dyke in you... Especially after our first time..."

"I like men and women" Anita replied, awkwardly

Jennifer raised what was left of her eyebrows in mock surprise.

"Wow, we have so much in common, who'd have thunk it... Oh yeah, me"

Before Anita could unpack that, a young african american man, one of the students, maybe? Wandered up to their booth, and made small talk for a few minutes before telling Anita that he would love to take her out to a new club that just opened up in Devil's Kettle. Jen found that hilarious, though Anita couldn't work out if that was because he had chosen her over Jen, or because Devil's Kettle had an actual club now. In either case, Anita politely declined and the beautiful young man went back to his friends.

"No love for Chocolate Chip?" Jennifer giggled

Oh that hurt. Perhaps seeing the look on Anita's face, Jen relented.

"Okay, okay, no mentioning your first love... sorry"

"Do you know what I miss most about Chip?"

"Oh God, it's going to be something terribly cliche" Jennifer groaned "His smile, his eyes, how the toilet smelt after he took a dump"

"I don't miss anything"

Nothing. Jennifer Check was speechless once again, it seemed miracles would never cease tonight.

"I barely remember his voice" Anita continued "I feel like such a bitch"

"Because you can't remember your childhood sweetheart?"

"No... I definitely remember you"

There. Might as well drop all of the bombshells tonight. Who knew if Anita would ever have another chance to say it.

"What?" Jennifer still had the cutest look of absolute confusion, even with her face looking like a patchwork blanket knitted by George A. Romero. Anita had always assumed that Jen knew how she felt.

"It was you Jen... It was always you... I loved Chip so very, very much... But I only loved him because he looked at me the way I wanted you to look at me... And after our first time, you never did"

"Is... Is that why you killed me?"

Fucking Jennifer, always making everyone else the villain of her story.

"No" Anita sighed "I killed you because you were butchering our classmates... I hated that thing you became, I was tired of burying my friends, and tired of wondering which one would be next"

Jennifer nodded absently for a moment, mentally digesting all of that, before eventually shaking her head.

"Probably doesn't matter anyway" Jen exhaled "Low Shoulder have probably made like a million demon bitches by now"

"Well, no"

"How would you know?"

"Because one night" Anita confided, voice low "I tracked them down and murdered them all"

Jennifer's mouth fell open, Anita was worried that her jaw was going to detach again, but it held firm.

"You did that for me...?"

All Anita could do was nod. Sure, she could make up some bullshit about doing it for Devil's Kettle, or the victims of the demon... or even Chip, her poor Chip... But it would be a lie. She massacred those bastards because of what they did to Jen. Because they took Jen away from her. Because it felt good to make them suffer like they made her best friend suffer.

"Shit..." Jen whispered "I'm kinda touched you went all Painkiller Jane for me"

The sound of smashing plates cut through their conversation, Anita turned in her seat and saw some old guy with a scraggly beard harassing the pregnant waitress.

"Oh fuck" Jen laughed "It's Wroblewski"

Holy shitsucker from hell, Jen was right, the old man was their former biology teacher Mister Wroblewski, even though he looked like ass, Anita could still see his prosthetic hook shining at his side. It looked different, somehow, almost sharp.

"Look!" The old man practically screamed "I can't afford the child support, and my wife said that if I made love to another girl, she'd leave me... So please, do me a solid and just get it out"

Anita had heard that Wroblewski was fired for getting two students pregnant. He had always seemed so nice, but Anita knew that nice didn't naturally translate to good, and under it all he was just a fucking asshole who used his position and all the tragedy around Devil's Kettle to abuse teens. Trauma makes it easier to manipulate vulnerable people after all.

"You think I wanted her, Ralph!? I asked you for the money to get it done months ago, and what did you tell me?"

"I..."

"You said you didn't believe in abortion! That you wanted us to be a family together, that you'd divorce your wife and use the money to buy us a nice big house to raise our kid!"

"Yes, but..." Wroblewski stuttered

"It's too late, Ralph! I'm too far across the line because of your bullshit... I can't get one now... I wish I could! But I can't!"

Wroblewski looked pissed, his face was all red and blotchy like an embarrassed Warthog that just fell into its own pile of shit.

"Fine..." he accepted "... I guess I'll just have to do it myself"

Before the waitress could even process what the elderly teacher had said, Wroblewski lifted his gleeming prosthetic, holy fuck it was a machete, and he ran her through the stomach with it.

"Pig on a spit" Jennifer laughed

Something inside Anita snapped. No one deserved to die like that. She took her Swiss Army Knife from a compartment in her boot, opened up the pointy end and ran toward Wroblewski. Anita caught him off guard and stabbed him in the back, wrenching the blade up to his shoulder, and then finally burying it in his neck. Wroblewski stiffly turned toward her, she tried to kick him in the balls but he caught her leg, and smashed her in the face with a nearby tip jar.

Anita fell to the ground, reeling and spitting out glass, as Wroblewski slowly and excruciatingly raised the machete above his head.

Wroblewski stopped, suddenly paying close attention to Anita's face.

"Needy?"

Jennifer plowed into him, knocking the former biology teacher into a kids size plastic statue of Scooby-Doo, it broke his fall and his two front teeth.

Jennifer lowered her hoodie to give Wroblewski a good look at her. He backed away in fear.

"Jennifer..." he choked on his own teeth "This isn't at all possible..."

Jen didn't give Wroblewski the chance to say anything else, she simply strutted up to him, ripped off his prosthetic machete, and buried it in his head.

"And that, Lesnicki..." Jennifer winked at Anita "Is how you kill a cunt... Aren't you glad you brought me back?"

Anita couldn't answer, the waitress was still gurgling on her own blood. Anita hobbled over to her side. A tiny hand was poking out of the woman's baby bump, it was moving.

"Get her out of me, please..." the waitress begged

Anita grabbed her Swiss Army Knife again and tried to cut methodically around the wound in the baby bump.

"No time!" Jen interrupted and mercilessly ripped the wound open by hand, freeing the baby and lifting her out of the waitress's corpse. The waitress had died with a smile on her lips, her body finally free of the thing she didn't want.

Jen looked down at the little baby with such affection and care, so fearful that the little thing would stop breathing. In that moment, there was no callousness, no bitchiness, no gross douchebaggery. Only Jen, her Jen... The one she fell in love with.

Jen reluctantly gave the baby over to Anita.

"She deserves someone pretty to look at when she opens her eyes" Jen breathed, pulling her hood back up

"You are so beautiful, Jen"

Jennifer grimaced and shook her head, sadly.

"... Needy, I think... I think you have Stockholm Syndrome or something" she replied, before taking a regretful look at the dead waitress, and then her baby, and finally leaving the diner.

Anita quickly wrapped the baby up in her jacket, found a mirror compact behind the counter, and rushed off after Jen. This had to be said, Jennifer had earned it.

Anita found Jen lying on the roof of an old van in the parking lot. It was starting to rain. Jennifer looked like an Angel.

"Going nowhere fast?" Anita teased

Jennifer chuckled that sweet chuckle of hers.

"Feeling lost..." she admitted "I'm back to life after ten years and... I have no idea what to fucking do... And all these stupid motherfucking feelings just won't stop, why can't I turn them off any more?"

"Because you're a human not a demon?"

"Oh be real, Needy, I don't resemble anything close to a human being anymore"

Anita handed her the compact. Jennifer raised her eyebrows, sarcastically, like she was so done with this entire situation, but then caught a glimpse of her reflection. Zombie Jen was long gone, all that was left was exactly how Jennifer's body looked ten years ago, the exact night they had met Low Shoulder. She was beautiful, young, and alive again.

"How?!" Jen cried

"Before I brought you back, I cast an enchantment" Anita softly told her "It took a while to kick in but basically it means that you and I share a soul... My soul, and as long as I'm alive, Death can't have you... You won't decay... You can have your life back"

"And you?" Jen looked worried

"My lifespan... Our lifespan is halved, but it is so worth it"

"No" Jen shook her head "Not after all the shit I put you through... Needy, you deserve to live a full life"

Anita took Jennifer's hand gently in hers, Jen actually let her.

"The last ten years without you have been so empty" Anita explained "Don't make me go back to that"

Jennifer stroked the back of Anita's hand, comforting her old sandbox love. Her touch was so warm, even in the rain.

"I won't" she promised "Thank you... Anita"

"Oh, I think I'm still Needy"

"Oh, really?" Jennifer smirked "What are you Needy for?"

Anita showed Jennifer exactly what she was Needy for. Jen's lips tasted so sweet, so right, as they welcomed her back home.

The baby yelled, excited to hear her own voice. Jennifer and Needy used that moment to break apart and take a look down at the girl. The endless possibilities of a new life, a new beginning. Needy smiled at the rare spark of hope in Jennifer's eyes. She knew exactly what they were going to do.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

Seventeen Years Later

A bizarre, freakishly sharp wind traveled through the sleepy city of Diablo, California, it might've heralded the middle of Winter, though it was about six months too early and in entirely the wrong State. Nevertheless, It chilled the people on the streets to their very cores, it gnawed, angrily at the trees, and then it finally came to rest on the fashionable little suburb of Cody. Though, why it settled down there was anyone's guess. Most of the houses were pretentious, trendy little things, used mostly for renting out as AirBnBs or the sets of interactive VR music videos. One house, however, believe it or not, was an original Erica Check creation... It reeked of her. It had never been filmed or leased out in all its fifteen years of existence, its only role, to provide safety and comfort for the small family of three that owned it. The thing lurking in the wind pressed a hand to the window and drew itself closer to see what tasty morsels were inside.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

Jennifer Check was brushing up on slang terms for her new clients. She was a fitness guru and dietitian, but all of her customers were like half her age and she could barely understand their bullshit made up language.

"Okay, so 'Crash' is good and 'Mode' is bad, and 'Schway' means cool... but then what the fuckcicle does 'Well Schway, Jen, you just Crashed the Mode' mean?'

"Um, maybe it means 'Cool, you just fucked shit up?' I was never very good at slang" her wife, Needy admitted

"Heh, yeah, I remember when you thought Mani Pedi was an Italian stud on Myspace... Fuck I miss Myspace"

Needy was packing for one of her hideously expensive 'Rich Customers Only' tours of haunted towns. As the owner of the business, she accompanied the rich dips and made sure they didn't get eaten by Werewolves or barbecued by the locals.

Jennifer held out her arms, asking wordlessly for a cuddle. Needy happily embraced her.

"Am I getting old, Needy?" Jennifer whimpered

"Yes" Needy smirked, before Jennifer swatted her with a pillow

"Bitch"

The front door was thrown wide open and in wandered their daughter Sahara. She was a little trouble maker and so god damn frustrating, but they loved her so hella much. She was almost as good at manipulating as Jennifer was.

"Hey moms!" she greeted, trying to obscure their view of the area between the open front door and the stairs

"Hey sweetie, did you have a good day?" Needy asked, pretending not to see her daughter's boyfriend and girlfriend ascending the stairs

"Ugh, High School, you know? I have so much homework, it's barfing Mode... I think I'm just gonna get right to it" Sahara noticed Needy's suitcase "Have fun in Springwood, Momma"

"Thanks baby"

"Oh hon?" Jennifer asked, just as Sahara was leaving to go upstairs

"Yeah, Mom?" she asked, nervously

"What does 'Crash the Mode' mean?"

Sahara burst out laughing, it seemed as if she just couldn't help herself.

"Let me guess, Uncle James told you that one?"

Jennifer nodded, reluctantly, embarrassed to have to ask her teenage daughter.

"It means that your rizz game is zero and you've made everything so whoring jinxxtastic, zoom motherfucker" Sahara answered, before laughing all the way upstairs to her bedroom

"I miss calling things salty" Jen mentioned with a sigh.

Needy nibbled at Jennifer's earlobe for a moment before deciding "You are so super salty"

"You know salty means semen, right?" Jennifer grinned

"I've changed my mind, you're clearly a ten year old"

Upstairs, they heard Sahara's boyfriend warn her that he didn't have a condom.

"Oh shit no, we are not ready to be grandmas right now"

Jennifer leapt off the sofa and bounded up the stairs, before breaking down their daughter's door with her unnatural strength and screaming in her best facsimile of a demonic voice.

"Always use condoms or I will fucking eviscerate your soul and take a god damn shit on your face!"

"I'm on the pill!"

"Contraceptives aren't always effective! Double up!"

Moments later, Jen sauntered downstairs with Sahara and her two lovers behind her. The two other teenagers looked like they had just seen the Great Beast himself, they were trembling, but Sahara just looked pissed.

"Again!? Why do you have to be so fucking embarrassing! At least my birth mom had the common decency to fucking die and leave me to it! When are you going to follow her example!" Sahara screamed and then ran upstairs after her friends had left

"We don't mind you fucking!" Jen yelled as she cuddled up next to Needy "Just leave pregnancy until that magic moment in a womb-havers life when you're rich and successful and your parents are in an old folks home and don't even have to change their own diapers!"

"I HATE YOU!" Sahara screamed

"We love you too!"

Jen supposed Needy was right after all, Hell was a teenage girl, but Jennifer wouldn't have had it any other way.

"Was all of that really necessary?" Needy pouted, mockingly

"With the amount of Plan B this household goes through? Absolutely"

Jen softly kissed the fake pout off of her wife's face, she basked in the warmth of her truest love, her Needy, and admired their new matching wedding rings, engraved with the letters 'BFF'

To Jen this was better than any stupid afterlife. She was so glad that she stuck around for this.

O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O

The Exile from Hell inked a heart on the window with its own putrid blood. It was glad that its former host was well, they had both come so far since Devil's Kettle. A single bloody tear ran down its face. It was actually happy... It had never felt happiness before, not like this.

The Exile smiled thoughtfully at Jennifer, there was still a connection there between them... An ache... A belonging... Sure, it was weak but it had been enough to help free the Exile from Lord Lucifer's grasp. The Demon knew that no matter how much they both wanted it though, they could never go back to the way things were... Back to their glory days... They had both changed too much, but it would make a point to keep an eye on it's old friend's family... Offer them a, heh, helping hand if needed... It was the least it could do... And hey if they wanted to reward it by giving it a new home to live in, well fair was fair.

Noticing young Sahara sneaking out of the house from the balcony next to her bedroom, the Exile licked its lips before shifting its shape into a much more desirable form, and striving out to make a brand new friend. She smelt so sweet, like virgin blood... It was too late when the Exile realized the error of it's ways. Sahara's wrist opened and forced the Demon into her veins, stripping its power away and harnessing it for herself. The Exile realized in it's last moments that it had been played, it's connection with Jennifer was too weak to help it escape from Hell, Sahara had exploited it, probably sacrificed the blood from one of her little friends to enhance the connection, but why? What was she going to do with it's power? The Exile's last thought was of Jennifer, truly afraid for whatever Sahara had planned for her and Needy... Fear, heh, today was a day for firsts.

The End