“Your mom,” said Linda. “You still live with your mom, by the way? There’s nothing wrong with still living with your folks, of course there’s not, but you still live with them like this? You’re not a teenager anymore, Kevin.”

“Party-Monster,” said the Party-Monster somewhat feebly.

“You’re a grown-up,” Linda continued. “Do you have a job? Or is Party-Monstering a full-time occupation?”

The Party-Monster didn’t answer.

“So you don’t have a job, then. You live with your folks, you don’t clean your room, you probably never even open a window in here, and you don’t pay your own way.”

Kelly shook her head sadly. “Oh, Party-Monster …”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” said the Party-Monster. “I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I do what I do. I am who I am. I party.”

“Playing video games in your underwear is not partying.”

“You just wait,” the Party-Monster sneered. “You hang around a few hours, and then you’ll see exactly what kind of Party-Monster I can—”

“We know that you change into a demon,” Ronnie said.

The Party-Monster’s sneer dropped. “Oh.”

“We know it all. We don’t care. The only reason we’re here is to get the code to the bunker. You know it, don’t you?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because if you don’t I’ll beat you up again,” said Linda.

The Party-Monster puffed out his chest, which only served to accentuate how big his nipples were. “You caught me by surprise in the bar. Try that again and see what happens.”

“I would step towards you right now, but I’m terrified of what I might step on,” said Linda. “Have you ever washed these clothes?”

“You can wash ’em if you want,” the Party-Monster said. He was getting braver. “You can start with these shorts I’m wearing. Come over here and get ’em. You or the redhead, I don’t mind.”

“I’m not really into naked men,” said Kelly, “but if I were I’d probably still not be into you.”

The Party-Monster laughed. “What are you, a lesbian?”

“Yes.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

He was definitely getting braver. This would not do. Kelly reached for the wires connecting his TV to his games console.

“Hey,” he said, “don’t touch that.”

“Tell us what the code is or I’ll pull out all of these wires and you’ll lose your progress. I bet you didn’t have a chance to press save when we walked in, did you?”

The Party-Monster licked his lips nervously. “You can’t … you can’t threaten me like that. That’s not even a threat. I’ll just replay the section.”

“What Kelly is doing,” Ronnie explained, “is firing the first salvo. This is our opening threat. Will it work? Probably not.”