saline-plays-sims

[saline-plays-sims]

Some chronic illness stuff is flaring up right now, and all my ability to concentrate has drained away over the last couple of days.  I don’t know if/when I’ll be well enough to keep working on this story.  I’m sorry.

[saline-plays-sims]

"Hey, Goldie --"

"I'm busy!  Just like I was busy the last six times!  And all of yesterday, and all the day before that!"

"I just want to talk about the Weisses."

"Go away!"

"Is it really worth it to have me knock every half hour for the rest of the day just to avoid a five-minute conversation?"

"I don't want to talk to you!"

"We live in the same house.  You have to talk to me eventually."

"I do not!"

"I'm sick of listening to you two shout at each other through that door."

"So make him go away!"

"You need to go down to the riverside this afternoon, Goldie, and you can't stop him from coming with you."

"Fine!  He can talk for five minutes, and I'm timing it!"

"Come on, Goldie, won't you even look at me?"

"I only said I'd listen."

"Fine.  Whatever.  Look, first of all, it's not fair for you to spend forty hours working off one missed curfew.  I wish Dad could've pushed back on that.  But I understand why he didn't, because Daytona and Rich are dangerous right now, and sometimes you have to pick your battles.  ...Are you actually listening?"

"Pick your battles, you're a coward, blah blah blah."

"...Second of all, you don't need to worry about the Weisses.  You're fifteen.  The only thing you should be worrying about is which boy you like better."

"The boy I like best is locked up in his own house for no reason, along with my eventually-niece-or-nephew, and you're not doing anything to fix it."

"I -- fine.  I'm not doing anything to fix it.  But I am keeping you out of Daytona's crosshairs, and that's more important than what you think of me."

"So do you actually have anything to say?"

"...No.  I guess I don't."

[saline-plays-sims]

"What are you doing here?"

"I’m making lunch because I can't leave."

"You can't leave?"

"I can't leave!  They have me locked in here doing all their housework and changing their stupid baby's stupid diapers all day!  I'm supposed to pretend I'm not here if anyone comes by and I don't even get to sleep in a bed!"

"...Really?"

"Do I look like I'm joking?!"

"Do you know all the Weisses are locked into their house?"

"They don't have to do everybody else's housework, so I don’t care."

"I'm trying to help them get out.  If I figure it out, I'll let you out too.  Do you know how you're locked in?"

"If I knew how I wouldn't still be here!  Rich walked up behind me, there was a zap on the back of my neck, and now I can't leave.  That's every single piece of information I have about it."

"Is there anyplace in the house that's off-limits?"

"I don't have time for this.  Lana keeps throwing water on me if I don't get everything done, and I can't get everything done."

"What if I make the sandwiches and you sit down for a little bit?"

"Seriously?"

"You kind of look like you need it?"

"...There's a closet off of Rich and Lana's room.  I peeked in once and saw a bunch of money and some weird stuff.  There was a thing that looked like a torture device, there was a cooler full of green sludge, and that was about all I saw before I heard someone coming and had to start picking up laundry.  If there's anything, I bet it's in there."

"If I set these out, would you call them down for a meal and let me sneak up the back stairs and not tell anyone about it?"

"You can do literally whatever you want and I'll help.  I hate everyone who's ever lived here except maybe that stupid baby, and you're being nicer to me than anyone's been in weeks."

"...I’m really sorry?"

"Oh, hello, Goldie.  You haven't been by in a while."

"I know.  It's really hard to catch enough fish for Rhett before curfew.  He eats so much right now.  I never get to see Lil anymore and it sucks.”

"It's a shame you don't have any help.  Well, Lil is down for a nap at the moment.  I believe Candy just put lunch on the table, if you'd like to join us until she wakes up?"

"Yeah, thanks, Ms. Lana!  I'm starving."

[saline-plays-sims]

"That isn't fair!"

"You were out past curfew."

"By one hour!"

"It's only a week, and next time you'll get home on time, won't you?"

"I can't believe you're letting her do that!  I can't believe you're letting her get away with everything she's doing!"

"Goldie --"

"Shut up, Rhett!  This is none of your business!"

"No!  I'm serious, Goldie.  You know what she did to the Weisses.  I don't want you to draw her attention."

"We should be helping them, not -- not ignoring what happened and hoping it doesn't happen to us!  I thought you were going to do something, but you're a coward!  We're all cowards and I hate you both!"

"Goldie --"

"Let her go, Rhett.  She's fifteen and she misses her boyfriend.  She'll understand when she's older."

[saline-plays-sims]

"She's a kid.  She stayed out too late.  It happens.  She wasn't even doing anything but fishing."

"We have a curfew for a reason."

"Nobody got hurt, and I'm grounding her.  She'll have to take Rhett with her every time she leaves the property for a week.  I appreciate you bringing her home safely, Daytona.  Is there anything else you needed from us?"

"I'm going to require community service."

"What kind of community service?"

"She'll need to spend some extra hours out at the communal garden."

"Extra hours?"

"Everyone will be required to work at least sixteen hours a week once we begin planting.  I'll announce it at our next meeting."

"Okay.  How much do you want from her?"

"She'll need to come out for a full shift every day for a week, including the weekend."

"For being out one hour past curfew?"

"I won't allow the young people to think that breaking the law is trivial.  The curfew is for their own good."

"...All right, Daytona.  I'll make sure she shows up."

[saline-plays-sims]

"I talked to Yvette."

"About what?"

"About everything."

"What did she tell you?"

"Pretty much everything.  More than anyone else -- even you -- has."

"You have to understand why I couldn't.  I tried to convince them that they could trust you, and so did Dixie, but Rhett wouldn't listen.  I’m glad Yvette didn’t know he didn’t want you to know.”

"So what's going to happen next?"

"I haven’t been able to think of anything, and I don’t think anyone else has, either, so I guess we’re just waiting for Daytona’s next meeting.  I guess we’ll just talk about whatever happens at that.”

"Where do we meet up, anyway?"

"Here.  Where else could we all meet?  Here we only have to worry about Junior, and he's, well... Junior."

"Right; silly question.  Does this cluster look ripe to you?"

[saline-plays-sims]

"Yvette, can you tell me what's going on?"

"What are you asking about?"

"Everything.  No one's telling me anything.  Dixie had to explain that Grandma confiscated all the seeds the Lands had stored up.  I don't understand what's going on between Dad and Mom and Grandma -- Dad's not talking to either of them, and he hasn't gone near Myrtle.  I can't figure out why Viola hasn't been back to visit and hasn't even been down to the riverside, and the Manns won't let me in to talk to her.  I didn't even know that the Weisses were under house arrest until I tried to visit Woody.  I'm more confused now than I was when we all first woke up.  Please; I'm fifteen.  I'm not a child."

"...I'll explain some of it.  Is there someplace private we -- and Sadie -- can go to talk?  This can't be overheard."

"If we really can't talk here, I guess there's -- um, everybody calls it the Makeout Spot...  As far as Grandma’s concerned, I’ve never even heard of it, okay?”

[saline-plays-sims]

"What did you need to talk about?"

"I didn't want Scot to hear this, so I didn't mention it at the meeting."

"...He's not here now, so go ahead."

"Hamilton said some things to his mother...  It sounded like his miscarriage wasn't natural.  It sounded like it was something she did to him.  Talked him into.  I don't know which."

"Oh, no..."

"What?"

"Did Daytona ever offer you an abortion pill last fall?"

"No.  Why would she?  How would she?"

"I gave her one.  Never mind why I had it, but I didn't want it, and I didn't want to decide who should get it if more than one person did.  So I asked her to handle it.  I thought nobody wanted it after all.  ...Maybe you misunderstood.  She's ... well, she's behaving badly.  But that doesn't mean she'd -- it has to be a mistake.  Maybe she gave it to someone else and it just didn’t work.”

"You do understand that there are bad people, don't you?"

"Well -- sometimes people do bad things."

"And sometimes that makes them bad people."

"It's not my place to judge."

"Sometimes you have to.  Look, if you can't even admit that Daytona's -- at best -- not a good person and might have done a bad thing, then how am I supposed to trust you?"

"Why wouldn't you trust me?  I know the things we're sure she's doing are wrong."

"I'm not sure I trust your judgment."

"You don't have to tell me that I'm naive.  And maybe I'm wrong and Daytona really did force Hamilton to have an abortion he didn't want.  But it's kind of beside the point -- if she did, there's nothing we can do to fix it.  Why can't we just agree to disagree and concentrate on what we know happened and can still fix?"

"...Fine.  It's late, anyway.  I'm exhausted."

"Me, too.  I don't know how Mom did this five times."

"I'm just hoping I survive it once."

[saline-plays-sims]

"You never told me you liked girls."

"I didn't want to."

"But you couldn't have thought I'd care, could you?"

"No.  I don't want Mom and Dad to know yet, and I'd rather keep my own secrets than make you keep them for me."

"They've never said anything homophobic that I can remember."

"I don’t know for sure that they aren’t, especially if it’s their own daughter.  I'd rather wait."

"Okay.  I'm not going to tell anyone, and I'll talk to Scot about it."

"Thanks."

"...So, do you like anyone in particular?"

"I'm not answering that."

[saline-plays-sims]

"You didn't find anything?"

"Nothing.  Nothing about our parents; nothing about the way into the Weisses'."

"Well, shit.  I don't know how we can break into the Manns'."

"Did you guys know Viola's there?"

"What?"

"When I told them I was inviting Viola over, too, Sadie said Ms. Daytona sent her away a couple of weeks ago because there wasn't enough room at the Beeches'.  Sadie and Virginia haven't seen her since."

"I visited Lil and Candy last week, and I didn't see her.  Mary, what about your boyfriend?"

"Junior hasn't mentioned it...  Should I go wake him up and ask?"

"Later.  So maybe whatever gets Daytona in there is something she keeps on her, like a keycard.  How can we get something like that from her?"

"We should ask Virginia.  She could look through her grandmother's things while she's sleeping.  And she wouldn't be in nearly as much danger if she got caught."

"No.  We're not bringing any of Daytona's family in on this."

"Scot's right.  Virginia's my friend, too, and she's not like Daytona."

"How exactly do you think things are going to go if you ask some kid to pick between her friend and her grandma?"

"She's only two years younger than I am.  She's old enough to know that what Daytona's doing is wrong."

"Shh!  We've got a visitor!"

"Maybe we should stop meeting in your living room..."

"Hi, Yvette.  Is there something I can help you with?"

"I need to talk to you and Dixie."

"It's not really a good time..."

"Hamilton saw you leaving."

"Oh, no --”

"Wait!  I'm the only adult in the house he's speaking to right now.  You don't need to worry about it getting back to Daytona."

"What do you want from us?"

"I want to help.  I don't know if you were looking for information about your parents or what's been done to the Weisses, but I can tell you about both."

"Why should we trust you?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't think you have a choice.  You're not going to be able to pull the same stunt over at the Manns'.  At least I hope you can't."

"Oh, that's disgusting!"

"He didn't tell us how he distracted them."

"He slept with Sandy about nine months ago, and he wants visitation."

"...Oh.  Rhett, does Penny know?"

"Look, it's most important that she's safe.  We can work out the rest later."

"I'm going to tell her if you don't."

"I figured."

"What do you know about our parents?"

"Something was wrong with your mother when she woke up.  She looked like some kind of animal -- sharp teeth, claws, hair all over her body.  She almost attacked Daytona, and when Homer calmed her down, Daytona convinced her that it wasn't safe for her to stay in Widespot.  I'm not sure Daytona was wrong.  Homer went with her rather than let her go alone."

"Are we sure Hamilton's the only drunk in town?"

"I'm pregnant."

"It is a little hard to believe..."

"I was right about the highway ending, and I'm right about this.”

“You saw it?”

“Yes.  I wanted to know what was going on, so instead of leaving when Sandy and the others did, I hid behind the dividing wall and watched.”

"...Well.  What about the Weisses?"

"Daytona doesn't know how Rich's devices work and couldn't explain them to me.  I don't know how much Rich knows about them.  There are individual small devices that keep each of the Weisses from leaving the property.  According to Daytona, only she, Rich, or Lana can remove them, and they have more in storage.  There's also a machine sitting on the Weisses' kitchen table that repels everyone but those three.  I don't know if there are any more of those.  There's a PIN needed to change the settings, and it has some kind of anti-tampering system.  I couldn't see which numbers she punched in."

"How does it know who's allowed in?  Is there a key or something we could steal?"

"It recognizes individuals somehow.  It took her almost half an hour to get it set up.  I think she was programming it to keep everyone else out individually rather than telling it to make exceptions for her and the other two."

"Do you know how we can get past it, or how we can take the other ones off the Weisses once we do?"

"No, I don't."

"Damn.  Anyone have any ideas?  ...Well, shit."

"You can't stay much longer, can you?"

"No.  And I can't come again anytime soon; there's no reason for me to visit.  Daytona knows I'm still an outsider here.  That's the only reason she tolerates me."

"You're in your early twenties?"

"I'm twenty.  Why?"

"And you're a lesbian, aren't you?"

"Where is this going?"

"I'm gay, too.  You could say you were coming here to see me if Daytona ever questioned it."

"You're, what, fifteen?  What kind of person do you think I am?"

"I'll be seventeen next month.  That's still not legal, so there’d be a reason to hide it, but it wouldn’t cause much of a problem if you pretended to admit to it.  You’re young enough and I’m old enough that most people wouldn’t care."

"...I don’t like it, but that’s a reasonably good cover story.  So when should we meet next?"

“Let’s meet again after Daytona’s next meeting unless someone thinks of something before then.  And let’s hope they do.”

[saline-plays-sims]

"Myrtle's going to need you sober.  Please.  Can you at least put the drink down and hold her for a few minutes?"

"She's not going to need me.  You and Mama handle everything."

"It doesn't need to be that way.  I'm not going to have another argument about your mother, but you're more capable than she's allowed you to be."

"You'd all be fine without me."

"Don't talk like that!  Of course we wouldn’t."

"Hey, Daytona, I need to talk to Sandy."

"She just had her baby this morning.  This isn't a good time."

"It's about the baby."

"She's not available.  She'll make her usual rounds later this week.  Whatever problem you're having will wait."

"No, this is about her baby."

"What could you possibly have to say to her about her baby?"

"If you won't let me in, then bring her out.  And Hamilton, too; this is his business as much as anyone's."

"I don't think you have anything to say that we need to hear."

"Look, all you get to pick here is whether you hear it firsthand or second.  Either we talk, or I tell it to everyone who’ll listen."

"Sandy, I want to see my kid."

"You cannot be doing this."

"You heard me.  I want to see my kid."

"She's Hamilton's!"

"You can't know that."

"You slept with him?”

"Rhett's lying.  He's crazy."

"I won't stand for this kind of drama under my roof.  The baby is Hamilton's.  Sandy, you and Rhett won't have so much as a conversation again, and I will enforce that if necessary."

"You don't need me for anything at all, do you?"

"I just made a stupid mistake.  It wasn't about you.  This is our family; she's our daughter."

"I told you I won't stand for this.  Sandy, Hamilton, go inside.  Rhett, get off this property immediately."

"This is none of your business, Daytona!"

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not leaving until I see my kid."

"Sandy's right, Mama."

"Hamilton, what on Earth are you saying to me?"

"This is none of your business.  My family is none of your business.  It was none of your business last fall, either."

"Wait, what happened last fall?"

"I know I raised you better than to show your own mother such disrespect!"

"Sometimes I think maybe you didn't raise me the way you should have."

"I certainly should've done a better job of it if you can't even be grateful for the fact that I saved your life.  What do you think is going to happen later this spring without a hospital?  Do you know how many tens of millions of simoleons a year the city-state spent on emergency medical care for its two hundred and fifty annual alien pregnancies?"

"Maybe you’re right, Mama.  I don’t know.  Sandy, you should let Rhett see his daughter.  I’m going to go have another drink.”

[saline-plays-sims]

"Hey!  You guys are Beulah and Homer, right?  The visitors?  I'm Daisy.  I'm Helen's sister; I don't know if you've met her yet."

"It's nice to meet you, Daisy.  It's strange to be meeting new people again."

"It's so weird for all of us to see people around who aren't our age.  Good weird, but weird.  Anyway, I wanted to ask if you could bite me."

"Excuse me?"

"We should have somebody here who can get past the dead people, and I always meant to get bitten as soon as I was old enough anyway.  Werewolves are so cool.  I thought I'd lost my chance."

"I almost died becoming a werewolf.  I'm not sure it's worth it for you to go through that."

"Did you get it straight from a wolf?  It's not nearly as dangerous when it's passed between humans.  I'll be completely fine by tomorrow night as long as you're careful not to, like, savage me.  I kind of thought everybody knew that, but I know a whole lot about werewolves."

"Beulah, if it's that small a thing, it might be for the best if I was a werewolf, too."

"...Well.  If you're sure, Daisy.  Homer, you'd better wait until we make it back to Widespot, unless you want to stay another day."

"No, I'd rather get back to the kids first."

"Awesome!  Thank you so much.  JoAnn and I will walk you to the southwest bridge just before sundown."

"Oh, man, I'm so excited.  Can you do my forearm?  It'll be such a great scar and I want everyone to see it.  --Look, it's almost sundown!"

"It's your body, honey.  Give me just a moment while I change."

"This is going to be so awesome."

"I love you dearly, Daisy, but I'm never going to get your thing about werewolves."

"Come on, just think of what we can do with a werewolf backup vocalist!  The one we still haven't named needs some howling."

"...I'm listening."

[saline-plays-sims]

"Hey!  You guys are up!"

"Are we crashing a party?"

“No, of course not!  Everybody's welcome at a party.  And we had to throw one for our first visitors.  Come on, come sit with me once you've gotten something to eat."

"So where you guys are from?  You said you still have a whole town, right?"

"Well, a small town.  Only a handful of families and a few out-of-towners who got trapped there.  Widespot is about ninety miles down the old river road to the south, right at the spring."

"That can't be right.  I grew up about fifty miles further south than that, and there's definitely not a town called Widespot along the way.  I'd know.  I took a bus home every other weekend last year.”

"We didn't think there was anything for two hundred miles north of us.  A lot of things have changed."

"I guess a town springing up out of nowhere isn't too weird to believe, considering.  So everyone woke up together?"

"At about the same time, yes.  It was as though we'd all just fainted in our homes for no good reason one evening, or maybe one morning.  With the power being out, some of us thought it might be some kind of natural disaster until we started exploring and realized all the roads but the one along the river dead-ended a few miles out of town.  I guess with those monsters so close you wouldn’t know if the roads up here do the same.  And -- there's not really a delicate way to ask this.  None of you seem to be expecting."

"Uh, we're all pretty young and most of us haven't known each other for very long.  We have plenty of time for, like, rebuilding society or whatever..."

"All of our young people over a certain age who weren't already pregnant woke up with morning sickness that day."

"Oh!  No, that hasn't happened here.  Thank goodness; we've got all the medicine in the student health center, but the closest thing we have to a doctor is Sara, who used to be an EMT after school.  One sec.  --Hey, Sara!  Cliff!  You need to play buffer, Hugh and Andy are fighting again and I'm busy!  --Sorry about them."

"Don't worry about it.  So what did happen here?"

"Well, ten of us woke up all at once late last summer.  We were sort of -- not a group but a web?  Siblings, housemates, housemates' siblings, that kind of thing.  We thought we'd all missed a mandatory evacuation order or something, and we decided to stay put until somebody came back for us.  After the first few days my brother and his fiancee and their fiance -- they were just friends then, this was like a week after they met -- anyway, they realized that the livestock on LGU's test farm were about to starve to death in their pens, so we all started taking care of them, and we figured we might as well try to save the crops too, and that kind of distracted us for a while.  The animals are fun but a farm is a lot of work.

"Then the first of the newbies woke up, and that's when we realized something else was going on.  We still don't know where everybody's coming from.  Nobody ever sees them, I don't know, materialize or whatever.  We don't ever even find them still asleep; they're always wandering around campus by the time anyone realizes they're here.  And the newbies all remember attending freshman orientation last fall, but nobody ever remembers seeing any of them there and they never recognize anyone else either.  It's the weirdest thing.

"Anyway, before anybody was ready to hike all the way to Pleasantview, my brother and Sara -- they weren't with Cliff yet -- anyway, they headed for that who-- uh, hotel just over the bridge because they were looking for a private spot to have, um, privacy, and that's how we all found out about those horrible moaning corpse things.  They don’t seem to cross the bridges, so since then we've stayed on this side of the river, and we've kind of just been living our lives?  I mean, there's not really anything else to do.  Of course there's been all kinds of, like, interpersonal drama, and the flu went around a few months ago, and everybody misses running water.  And since we didn’t really do that well with the farm last year, we're all sick to death of the pine nuts the frat figured out were edible.  But I think we're still managing to have fun, you know?  I try to make sure we are, anyway."

"If this party is anything to judge by, you're doing a great job of keeping everyone's spirits up.  ...Our hometown had pretty much decided this was some kind of mass alien abduction, but things are so different here I'm not sure that still makes sense."

"My brother and Cliff and Sara are convinced that the universe is a simulation and we're somebody's science experiment.  They think it's great that they get to advance scientific understanding just by existing.  Cliff and Sara are bio majors, though."

"I don't follow."

"They grow 'medicinal herbs' for 'research.'  Oh, if you want any, Sara'll share if you ask her -- you saw her earlier in the blue skirt -- but don't try Cliff, he's kind of a grouch if he doesn't know you.  They've also got a couple of greenhouses full of, like, actual medicinal herbs -- witch hazel and St. John's wort and that kind of thing -- plus another with stuff like orange trees, if you need any of that?  And I've got to show you the test farm next time you're here!  We can give you all kinds of seeds or, I don't know, piglets or something if you want them.  It's lucky you showed up before spring.  And maybe you could bring some of your neighbors here as, like, guest lecturers, if anybody wants to teach us anything?  Or you guys could lecture yourselves; I don't know what kinds of things you know yet."

"I'm sure Daytona -- she's our de facto mayor these days; she was a state assemblywoman when all this happened -- would be happy to coordinate any kind of exchange you want to set up.  But please don't offer her any drugs, honey; she won't take well to that."

"But there's no assemblywoman named Daytona."

"Daytona Beech.  She's been elected six times.  We're a backwoods district; most people don't pay attention to us."

"I won the lottery for a volunteer internship in the Assembly last summer.  There's no Daytona Beech.  You're ninety miles south of here, right?  That should be twenty or thirty miles northwestish of Belladonna Cove -- you've got to be in Ramir Patel's district."

"I've never even heard of a town called Belladonna Cove."

"...Huh.  I'm going to have to ask my brother about this; maybe he'll come up with some kind of theory besides the simulation thing.”

"I'll have to ask our neighbors, too.  The Weisses are very intelligent.  They'd probably love to come up here and lecture on astronomy and beekeeping.  Well, anyway, if you want to write Daytona a letter, we'll carry it back.  And I know I'd be happy to share what varieties I have in my kitchen garden, too -- nothing very exotic, but I grow some wonderful heirloom asparagus."

"Asparagus?  Uh...thank you."

"Thank you, too, Ida Juana.  You've been very kind to us, and LGU seems like a very inclusive place."

"Sure!  The only good thing about all this is that we're starting over.  I'm a poli sci major.  I want things to be better for people than they used to be, and I'm sort of in charge for now just because the alternative was pretty much Andy at first -- he's my fiance, I love him, but I don't think there's anybody on campus he hasn't picked a fight with at one point or another and that's including Gerry, who woke up the day before yesterday.   Or maybe JoAnn could've run things, but she didn’t want to.  Anyway, for now I get to organize things however I want.  I'm drafting a new constitution in my spare time and everything; it's so much fun."

"That’s a wonderful attitude.  LGU is lucky to have you."

[saline-plays-sims]

"Two of you?  And you're -- um.  Nontraditional students?  Or were you professors or something before you woke up?"

"No, neither.  I was a housewife, for the most part, and he was a sheriff's deputy."

"That's really weird...  Anyway, I'm Ida Juana Knowe.  And that was Hi Thyme who found you; I bet he didn't remember to introduce himself.  He’s kind of an airhead sometimes."

"I'm Beulah Land, and this is my husband Homer."

"It's nice to meet you both, and we're glad to have you here!  Okay, so, getting down to business -- you're probably confused, and we all are too.  Most of the freshmen don’t remember much after orientation, and neither of us sophomores remembers anything after coming back for the fall, and nobody knows what happened.  Oh, if you guys have different memories, Ivan's going to want to talk to you, he's a history major and he's doing a project.  We'll set you up with a dorm room -- um, I guess we can put you guys in one of the old rentals?  We're not really using them for anything, so we could make an exception.  Anyway.  Take all the time you need to get settled, and afterwards --”

"Ida Juana, honey, I don't think this speech applies to us.  We woke up last summer, and we're just visiting."

"You didn't wake up here?  How did you get past those corpse monster things?"

"I'm a little tougher than I look, but it's a long story."

"Oh, you're probably tired if you've been traveling!  Sorry, I shouldn't be asking you a million questions right off the bat.  We've got a spare room upstairs -- uh, I'll change the sheets first -- and then we can talk later this afternoon when you've had time to rest.  I guess you might as well stay here tonight, too, if you’re not going to be here long?  We’re happy to have you as long as you want to stay.”

"We appreciate your kindness.  But we can't be in town -- on campus -- overnight."

"Why not?"

"This is going to sound crazy, but not too long ago I was attacked out in the backwoods, and now I turn into some kind of beast at sundown."

"You mean you're a werewolf?"

"A werewolf?"

"...You do know what a werewolf is, right?"

"I've never heard the word before."

"Oh, wow, you have such a good deadpan!"

"I'm not joking, honey.  I don't know what you're talking about."

"...how...?  Like... seriously, how?  You know the earth is round, right?  Well, whatever.  If anybody minds having a werewolf on campus then come talk to me and I'll get Andy to deal with it.  I’m not going to put up with that at LGU."

"But I don't want to risk hurting anyone."

"Do you have trouble with your temper or something?  Because I thought ol-- uh, people with a lot of life experience usually didn't have much trouble with that even with all the extra hormones."

"I almost attacked a friend the first night I was like this."

"I kind of slept through lycanthropy ed, but I'm pretty sure that's basically normal as long as it was only almost.  Don't some people get confused that first time?  And if you somehow didn't even know what a werewolf was..."

"...Homer, if I'm not dangerous, we can go home!  We can see the kids again!"

"Are you guys leaving already?  I'd really like to talk to you some more."

"We'll have to stay until evening regardless; I don't want to try to go back over the bridge like this.  And there are some things we want to know about you, too.  We've just got young kids that we haven't been able to see in a while, and our hometown needs to know there are other people out here.  --Oh, Homer, Dixie always wanted to go to college!  Maybe she'd want to come for a visit.  Ida Juana, if we could get our daughter here safely...?"

"Yeah, anybody's welcome!  We don't have classes or anything, but we have a library full of old paper books, and there's all kinds of practical stuff around campus if you want to learn.  Most of it doesn't really work without electricity, but I'm sure my brother's going to figure something out eventually.  And most of us do at least pick a major and borrow some textbooks, though some of us do a lot more studying than others.”

"We appreciate you giving her the opportunity.  And we'd be very grateful for that room if it's still on offer."

"Oh, sure!  We'll take care of you, don't worry.  --Hey, Andy!  Could the frat lend us some clean sheets?"

[saline-plays-sims]

"Hey!  You two!  Are you guys new here?"

"Yes.  Where's here, son?"

"Uh, Land Grant University?  Don't you guys remember orientation?  Huh, you're old.  I thought LGU had some kind of policy against that.  And we've never had a pair of newbies.  ...Well, whatever.  You need to go see Ida Juana anyway.  She’ll figure it out.  Come on, I'll show you where she is."

[saline-plays-sims]

[saline-plays-sims]

"Maybe the blue thing can't handle more than one person at once.  What if we all try to swarm it tonight?"

"There has to be something keeping them in.  How do we know it won't just trap us if we get past the blue thing?"

"We could break into Rich's house.  He could have a way in."

"You wanted to break into the Beech place, too.  Do I need to confiscate the mystery novels?"

"Wait, why do you want to break into Daytona's place?"

"To find out what happened to our parents."

"I bet she has a way in, too.  Somebody's got to be feeding them, right?  And I don't think Mr. Rich or Ms. Lana would make deliveries.  And we could see if there are any clues about Mom and Dad at the same time!"

"They're definitely all going up in the attic tomorrow. --Though, Dixie, you might be the one climbing the ladder."

"No, it's not a bad idea.  ...Look, I might have a way to keep Sandy and Hamilton and Daytona occupied if we can get them all out in the yard.  One use only, though.  Dixie, you and Scot could invite the kids over, right?  And that leaves Mary to search the house."

"What would I even be looking for?  Maybe Scot could invite them all and Dixie could search the house.  I could... Oh, I don't know.  I could stand watch at the window and make sure Dixie gets out in time."

"What about Yvette?"

"She's always taking long walks, and she fishes, too.  We'd just have to wait until she left on her own."

"Guys, I think you're forgetting Virginia."

"No, she'd be over here with the other three."

"No, I mean if we're searching her house, she could help."

"We're not going to tell Daytona's granddaughter we're breaking into Daytona's house."

"She'd help.  She's Woody's friend, too."

"We're not going to risk it.  Okay, if we're all agreed, let's meet at the junction to the old river road at noon tomorrow.  Except you, Scot; at noon you should be inviting the kids out."

"But what are we going to do to stop Daytona?"

"What do you mean?  -- And you're not old enough to call her just Daytona yet.  Don't be disrespectful."

"Daytona disappeared our parents.  She's taking all the food.  She locked the Weisses up.  She could do something worse next.  What are we going to do to stop her?"

"It sounds like you want some kind of coup.  Can't we just focus on getting the Weisses out for now?"

"And then what?"

"What do you mean?"

"What stops her from locking them right back up, and us, too?"

"...Well, we'd have the way in and out of whatever the blue feeling is."

"What if Rich has something else?"

"Do you want to get Penny and them out or not?"

"We have to do it right."

"We can still search her house tomorrow, can't we?  If we find a way past the blue feeling, we don't have to use it right away.  She won't know we've been in there.  And then we can figure out what to do after that.  --Shh, there’s someone on the porch!”

"Junior?  I thought you were going to stay home with Lil tonight...  Not that I'm not glad to see you!  Guys, we're done, aren't we?"

"Yeah.  Does Junior spend a lot of evenings here?"

"It's not anyone's business but theirs."

"...Scot, that wasn't as helpful as you thought it was.  Junior, you look like you've been crying.  Is everything okay?"

"No.  Candy found out, and she told my parents they could keep Lil or me.  They picked Lil.  Can I stay here?  At least for a while?  Please?"