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Who are these people? Jeannie thinks. I don’t know. And I don’t care.

And she sees a hail of bullets peel their faces back to free the blood inside, their brains painting the wilderness.

Her hand tightens on an imaginary trigger.

Yes. ANYtime.

For a split second, she’s all alone in somebody else’s skull. Crushed silent by the view. Walking into the night, every pore gorged on its darkness.

Just breathing in and out, in and out, in and out.

* * *

Under the cornfields which bracket the highway, animals stir restlessly in their long sleep, hearing the beat of a measured tread which chills their cold blood even further. A raccoon curls tight, cracking open the end of a rabbit bone as his teeth grind together; sharp white splinters pierce his gums. Mice put their tiny paws over their ears, and burrow deeper. A knot of garter snakes strangles itself.

An ant-hill’s entire winter supply of eggs withers, as the sole of Arjay’s left foot blocks out the sky.

Suddenly, she pauses in mid-stride. She sniffs the air.

A car is coming.

* * *

Never, in his dreams, is he Booger. They call him by much sweeter names in the world behind his eyes, which he visits as often as the bark and babble of more mundane reality will let him. That candy-colored world where no one ever yells, whose inhabitants comprise the entire toy section of his mother’s consumer catalogues. Like Chuck E. Cheese, but better. Where it’s his birthday every day.

Where he is absolute ruler.

Where Jeannie and Hank lie, screaming, stretched taut on the rack of his fertile imagination.

In Booger’s world, he is King Ronald, the First and Only. And they call him Master.

* * *

Ah.

Booger’s thoughts graze Arjay, clumsily. They seethe, full of a bile she drinks like wine. Only a sip, though; he’s young.

She turns her attention to the others.

Hank. And—Jeannie.

Scratch them. They bleed as deeply, if all unknowing. Very close. And getting closer.

Yesss.

And the hunger grips her, keen as love. Somewhere, someone whispers:

Feed and be strong, my love. Strong enough to kill them. Or anyone else.

Strong enough—

—to eat the world.

(Time enough for that, though. Later.)

With one foot on either side of the white line, Arjay turns, and pauses. Folding her arms, she readies herself. She holds up a fallow mirror to those shallow minds rushing toward her, paining her with their petty hopes and dreams. She holds it high, and a reflection grows, a more accurate one than any of them can stand to look at for long.

When they come, they will find her waiting.