“So, Ryan, what’d you do at school today?”

Ryan poked at the soupy grey lump on his plate and raised an empty fork to his lips. “Nothing.” He puffed out a cheek and pretended to chew.

I sighed. No reaction. My second sigh rusted into a kind of growl at the end. Ryan tactfully avoided my glare and continued to mimic eating.

“This food is yucky,” Rachel whined.

“Oh?” I shot back. “Tell me about it. Where do you think it came from?”

“What the fuck, Robert,” Ronda whispered with a hostagey kind of weariness. “Not her. She’s a fucking child.”

“Language darling. Like you said, she’s a fucking c-word.”

Ronda’s expression hardened into something practically Gorgonic and I’ll admit, it was intimidating, but not as intimidating as Edgar. Edgar sat beside Rachel, knees up to his face and inhaling the tension of the table like a goddamn Dyson.

“Rachel, what do you think Edgar’s deal is?” I cooed.

“He’s scary. I don’t like that his eyes are missing and I don’t like this food and I want my real family!”

Ronda’s eyes were a fucking hurricane of daggers, but she wasn’t going to tell a tale unless Rachel forced her hand. I just wanted to live and I’d rather it be Ronda who went down. Rachel was just a moral hand grenade I hoped Ronda would fall upon.

“What do you think happened to his eyes, sweetheart?”

Rachel side-eyed Edgar who was still eagerly slurping down air past his needley teeth.

“Umm, I think—“

“Once upon a time,” Ronda interrupted with the abruptness of a late-Cretaceous space dap. Edgar slowly turned his freakish face toward her.

“Go on,” I prodded.

Ronda began to weep and Ryan subbed in for her share of the death staring. Only with a decidedly teenage lack of emotional credibility.

“Un-fucking-holster that rage, Ryan. I bet you want something to happen to me. Don’t you? Tell me about it.”

He opened his mouth and closed it again like some useless waiting room aquarium captive. Then he sighed. “Never mind.”

I snapped a mental pencil and returned my attention to—wait—where was Rachel?

Edgar was stooped, making little sounds at the table’s edge. Whispering. It wasn’t a good sign. When we awoke at the table, Edgar had said, “one of you may tell me a story to save the rest.” That was it. Now I wondered if the other shoe would soon be dropping. I didn’t want to die. But maybe silence would buy us all a family cemetery plot to fill.

I eyed Ronda who was mouthing something to Ryan. Shenanigans! Ryan smiled and then dialed up the smugness as he turned to me.

…Edgar was looking at me too…pointing.

“You.”

“Me?!” I yalped. “I didn’t tell a fucking story.”

Edgar stared eyelessly and said, “?.”

“I…but that’s not…what kinda meta shit…”

He stood. I tried to run. I fell. My shoelaces were tied together. I saw Rachel shrug from beneath the table.

Oh…

Fucking c-word.