How did you see this going? You would do a sympathetic interview and then write it up whatever way you thought would see more clicks on your website? Make me a hero whose husband made a brave sacrifice or a monster who did an unforgivable thing? That’s why I avoided all the publicity from the start. I know the tricks of your kind.

But I have tricks of my own. This cabin isn’t rented in my name, and no one knows I’m here. No one knows either of us is here, in fact. And before you start begging again, just remember, you brought this on yourself. You just couldn’t leave well enough alone. Had to ask your prying questions.

And that’s okay. I understand. I have needs too. I have a terrible hunger sometimes now. Ever since…well, you now. And I’m smart and careful, but sometimes I have to give in to it. You know how it is when you just really have to have something, right?

So now I have a question for you.

When I start eating you, where would you like me to start?

No one believes that I have a twin.

Last week I saw my brother Jeffery for the first time in five years. When he looked up at me, his bloody hands tightly grasping fistfuls of that poor girl’s bloody hair, I knew from his expression that it was no accident, that he had meant for me to find him like this. Feeling his dark eyes boring into me from the depths of his pale and sweaty face, I felt like I was thirteen years old and back at Rocky Creek. Except instead of feeling love and admiration for my brother, now I only felt terror. As I ran away from the path home and to a local coffee shop where I hid out for the next half-hour, I thought back to my childhood with Jeffery—what happened when we went into the Ricter house, how he had screamed when I left him behind in that place, and how impossible it was for him to suddenly be back after all this time.

But more than anything else, I thought about how he had smiled at me tonight as he thudded the girl’s head back into the ground with the crack of an overripe melon.

****

From the outside, Rocky Creek was seen as some kind of militia compound or even a cult, though neither was strictly true. It was definitely remote and closed to outsiders, and yes, there were a decent number of guns around, but I only ever remember them being used for hunting or target practice. And if some of the people in the group had strong and slightly odd opinions on some things, well, there’s always a few odd ones in every bunch, right?