Bill needed no further invitation.

He sprinted toward the cabin, past the bodies of Mr. Fancy and the headless woman. When he reached the side of the cabin, he looked up to the roof. Terris stood there, but his wife was gone.

"Where is she?" he demanded.

Terris said nothing. He stood motionless, staring into the forest. Blood dripped from his hand, splattering onto the roof.

"Where is she, fuckface?"

Still no answer.

Bill ran to the other side of the cabin, to the door.

He barely spared a glance to the ranks of Terris' dead. He did see the two women in the green dresses with their eyes closed, holding hands. The man in the tuxedo held his head, as if keeping it from tumbling off his shoulders.

But these people weren't important. Only one thing was.

Constance.

He tore open the door and bolted into the cabin.

"Constance?" he called.

"Darling," she said. "Please come in and sit down."

When he saw her, the bottom of his stomach fell out.

"Sweetheart," he said, his voice breaking.

She sat at the table, her skinny legs crossed. She had taken down the hood, revealing her face, which had aged by at least ten years. Her eyes were puffy and bruised, as if she'd done a round with a heavyweight boxer. Her hair stood up in wild clumps.

"Sit down," she said. "Have a hot dog."

Bill and strode over, plucked her from her chair and lifted her in the air.

"God," he said. "What did they do to you?"

He tried to stifle his tears, but they came anyway. Constance's arms wrapped around him, but he barely felt them. She felt lighter than she had ever been, like her bones had been hollowed out. She smelled like a corpse.

"It's all right, darling," Constance said, her voice muffled against her neck. Over the stink of her body, Bill got a strong whiff of cinnamon. It smelled like her favorite liquor, something called Hot Shot. It came in a red bottle, Bill remembered, with sugar crystals growing on the glass.

She rubbed his back, and Bill barely felt the pressure.

"Can you put me down?" she asked after a time. Her voice was calm, flat.

Bill put her down gently.

"What did they do to you?" he asked, touching her face.

She took his hand, moved it away from her face. He could barely see her eyes as she looked at him.

"The same thing they did to you," she said. "Bill, I'm not frightened anymore."

With his free hand, Bill wiped his eyes. No shame in letting the tears flow, now. Nobody around them to see, nobody to care. And the situation had gone so far beyond anything resembling sanity, that nobody, not even his father, could blame him for crying like a baby. Indeed, anyone else would have probably curled up into a fetal position and wept at this point. Bill gave himself credit for just standing on both of his feet and being conscious; that was proof enough of his manhood.

"No?" he said. He touched her face again, noticing something.

Her cheek was smooth, undamaged.

"Your scar is gone," he said.

"Yes," she said. She gave him a weak smile. "But, I got something else."

"What?" Bill made fists. He felt his own scar under the pressure of his fingers. "What did he do to you?"

"Didn't hurt, darling," she said.

Constance held up her hand.

On her palm, taking up all of the space between her wrist and her finger, was the letter T, followed by an exclamation point. In bold black, just like the symbol he'd seen spray-painted in the forest.

Bill trembled with anger.

"That fucker," he said. "Is going to die."

Constance put her hand into her lap. She smiled up at her husband.

"Nobody needs to die," she said. "It didn't hurt. And the things I have learned, Bill."

"What?"

"Darling," said Constance. "It's been too long since we've eaten. I'm hungry, too. Please, have a hot dog."

She pointed to the table with her frail hand. Bill noticed that she had bitten her fingernails down to the quick.

On the table were two paper plates, with purple flowers painted around the borders. On each of the plates were two hot dogs and a pile of potato chips. The hot dogs closest to Bill were loaded up with every imaginable condiment, the way he liked them. Constance's had only thin ribbons of yellow mustard.

"Where did you get these?" Bill asked. He wiped his face. His empty stomach flopped. "We didn't bring any of those."

Constance picked up one of her hot dogs, and rammed it into her face. Her cheeks puffed out as she bit, taking off half of the dog. Mustard squirted out from between her lips.

While she chewed, she grunted and gestured at Bill's hot dogs, and pointed to his mouth.

Without question, bill obeyed. He grabbed one of his dogs and took a huge bite. It was easily the best one he had ever tasted; better than any cart on the streets of New Haven or Hartford or Providence.

She swallowed her bite, put down the other half of her dog. She pointed to the windows.

"It's going to be very loud," she said. "You might want to cover your ears, darling?"

Bill swallowed his bite, his body rooting him on to take another. Gastric juices rose up and destroyed the food like a tsunami in his guts.

"What?" he said. The food and the presence of his wife had taken all of his focus; he'd forgotten the scene outside, at least for the moment.

"It's going to get loud," she said.

Bill couldn't resist: he took another bite of the hot dog. It was better than the first. He wedged the entire thing into his mouth, and stuffed some chips on top of that for good measure.

"Mmm?" he said, over the mouthful of food.

Constance calmly said, "Sit, darling. The ritual is about to start."

"Fuck it," said Bill. "Fuck those guys. We're getting out of this, darling."

"No, we're not, Bill."

He reached over and took her hand.

Constance nodded to their plates. "I wanted those, and they came for me," she said. "I knew what you wanted to. And I haven't had a hot dog in decades."

Bill grabbed her chin, forced her to look at him. The whites of her eyes were bloodshot, her pupils huge.

"We have to go," he said.

"Please," said Constance. "Let go of me."

Bill dropped his hand from her face, but held her eyes.

"Look," he said. "I don't know what they did to us. Something weird. Somethinga*"

"Mr. Logic said he didn't like you," said Constance. "He said you were a stubborn learner. He had to wedge whatever there was to learn directly into your head. No receptivity, he said. A characteristic of your gender, which has been magnified greatly in your personality."

And she laughed.

Bill was shocked by the sound. Constance wasn't given to laughing much, even in the best of circumstances, and when she did, the sound was demure, almost apologetic.

Now it was something different. It was brash and loud, coming straight out of her diaphragm. It came out in little "ha, ha, ha" bursts that flew around the room and stabbed at his eardrums like a dull knife. He'd never heard her voice so loud in any context.

"What?" asked Bill.

"Don't be offended, William," she said. "Honestly. I know you're a stupid asshole."

Bill stared at his wife. He felt words at the back of his throat, but they died on his tongue.

"You're going to want to sit down, or get away from the windows," Constance said.

"Constance," he said. "What the hell happened to you?"

"She's safe, don't worry," she said. "And you're going to have to get away from that window."

Bill looked to his right. The window was half-obscured by a couple of threadbare curtains.

"Why?" he said. Nothing more profound came to mind. There was nothing he could have done.

"Blood," said Constance.

And then the screaming began.

Twenty.

Bill ran to the window.

He tore aside the curtain. Sprawled under the window was the headless corpse of the woman in the green. Bill saw the orange flash of Mr. Fancy's tie, and, behind that, the line of the dead facing the cabin.

"Sit this one out, love," shouted his wife. "Come sit."

But Bill barely heard her.

Every body standing in the line had their mouth wide open and their hands above their heads. Bill saw the fat guy in the sweatsuit and the Darth Vader t-shirt, and Travis next to him. Mary was down the line, hollering what was left of her lungs out.

The sound was so loud the glass rattled.

"Come on, darling," he heard his wife say, her voice somehow cutting through the shouts of the dead. "Come and sit down."

Bill felt himself step away from the curtain. He paid no attention to the movement of his body; the noise had consumed him. He had no idea if he moved under his own power, or if Constance had gotten the ability to reach into his body and control his nerves.

"This is going to be really loud," said Constance, her voice clear over the din. "Come on, darling. Have the rest of your hot dog. It's getting cold."

But Bill couldn't look away from what he saw next.

The dead ran from the crest of the hill behind the cabin. Every one of them held their hands over their head and every one still shrieked at eardrum-piercing volume. Bill saw Mary at the end of the line, her gold chains bouncing around her neck. Her bodice had fallen, exposing her gigantic breasts.

Bill tried to move, but couldn't.

There was definitely something holding him down.

"Constance," he said. "Are you...?"

"Relax, darling," she said. "Hold on. They're coming over the roof."

"Roof?" said Bill. "The fucking roof?"

"So we'd bettera*"