We slipped out of the gas station and started our trek over to the party. Our first stop was the burning barrel. We totally went over there to sell the fact that we were normal guys, and not to try to regain some of the feelings in our fingers. It took a minute or two for the locals to shake off the semi-drunken haze and notice us, and when they did a pretty blonde in a midriff baring top under a thick jacket approached with a friendly smile. I imagined she was cold, but honestly couldn’t bring myself to complain.

She gave us a dazzling smile, either too drunk to care we were strangers, too interested to mind, or happy with novelty of newcomers in her town. “Hi there, I’m Sarah, I haven’t seen you boys around here before?” Her voice had a slight southern accent to it, implying either she or her family probably weren’t from here originally either.

I responded with a smile of my own, seeing my brother do the same. As much as we were trained to be the familys attack dogs from birth, my father always stressed that we needed to be social and make friends. Not only was social acumen a necessary part of intelligence gathering, we were the heirs to the family, being able to properly mix with others was a must for whichever one of took over as head of the family and for the others who would undoubtedly end up running the branches. If we weren’t able to interact properly it could damage the familys political standing in the long run.

I gave my best aww shucks look and tried to come off as embarrassed “Yeah we, were passing through town a while ago and out car broke down. We know enough to fix it ourselves but we had to order the part and its taking ages to get here.” I purposefully did my best to be vague about how long we’d been here in case we’d been seen, and claiming to be fixing it ourselves cut out the possibility of some mechanic letting slip we were full of shit.

Sarahs dazzling smile shifted to a look of sympathy so fast I almost got whiplash, her brows crinkling in concern “Oh that’s terrible, I’m so sorry. Do you guys have anywhere to stay?” The powdered snow was drifting down to settle in her blonde hair, giving her a wholesome and friendly look that honestly made me a bit uncomfortable to be lying to such a nice girl. I gave her a reassuring smile.

“We’re all good, just a bit bored, we couldn’t help but see your party from our car and thought you guys might not mind a couple crashers. We can bail if it’s too big of a deal, either way is cool.” Pretty blue eyes widened in an almost excessive show of innocence and denial as the girl assured us we were completely welcome. Honestly I couldn’t tell if she was flirting or just REALLY nice. Excessively perky girls always fritz my radar.

Within minutes we had drinks in our hands and were surrounded by locals. Alex, ever the life of the party had long since gotten rid of any reticence and was grinning broadly as he regaled a pair of bubbly brunettes with the story of his near incarceration on our last trip to Tijuana (though he obviously left out the Chupacabra we’d gone there to hunt.) Lawson hadn’t shown his face since vanishing under a blanket in the back of the truck on the other side of the clearing and we were in no hurry, I suspect Sarah might have been crushing slightly, though she was undoubtedly also just a sunny person, she seemed to be touching me much more than she was anyone else at the party.

Sarah introduced us around to her friends, she seemed especially close with one Alexs brunettes , a cheerful girl name Abby. As we all talked she subtly took up residence at my side and managed to curl herself under my arm without being obvious about it, which was honestly kind of impressive, and proceeded to chatter happily to me about herself and how she’d just got a scholarship to some school I’d never heard of and she was going to be a veterinarian. A beer had somehow materialized in my hand (I swear it just appeared there, I didn’t even notice until I finished the damn thing) after a few minutes and before I knew it we had started playing a few interesting drinking games.

Alex decided to show off, because…well he was Alex, and entertained the girls with a couple of impressive tricks, a flip or two and his standard party fire breathing trick (its not magic, just a bottle of Vodka and really good lungs) where he blows a five foot cone of flames straight out in front of him and lights a cigarette im holding between my lips (I lost my eyebrows several times when we he made me help him practice it as kids, I think they’re still thinner than they should be). In general we just messed around and had some fun and impressed a few pretty girls.

Naturally when we started having a good time and really getting into it, that’s when the screaming started. It was hard to miss even from across the clearing, one of the two girls who had gone under cover with Lawson had resurfaced and was stumbling away from the truck naked. Her face and one of her breasts were splattered with fresh blood, and I could see a bit of steam rising off the liquid as it met the freezing air. One of the guys nearby caught the girl, too blinded by bare tits to notice the blood for a minute before he started screaming too.

Once that happened it set everyone off. I hear the girl screaming the name Kendra who I assumed was her friend and slipped my hand into my coat to palm one of the knives I carry for just such an occasion. Sarah looked terrified next to me “oh my god Ethan, why is Stephanie covered in blood? There…there isn’t too much of it there, Kendra might still be ok right? You don’t think she’s…dead, do you?”

The bubbly girls voice was high and fast with panic and her face was flushed with fear. She had mashed herself against my side and had her hands hooked around me like the jaws of life, which put me in a pretty bad position when Lawson casually threw back the blanket and hopped out of the back of the truck, exposing the corpse of the second girl, and I had to choke down a scream of my own at the gaping red rents in that pale dead flesh. Much like his sacrifice and his would-be second victim Lawson was also naked, but where Stephanie had only had a splash of crimson on her skin, Lawsons entire form had shifted to a deep burgundy color. Sarahs fear induced tirade melted into hysterical screaming upon seeing her former classmates red skin, and the horns probably didn’t help much either.