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sway past, exiting before us. We prepare to share another look when her screaming starts. Its high pitch wail sets us to motion, forgetting how very angry we were in the moments past.
    This is why they are monsters. Only something spawned from Hell in its most evil of corners could stand before me looking like this. The female that I had beaten with the glass vase stands wrestling Mintzy from the arms of Ginjer. Her fingers are wrapped tightly around the dog’s collar, stretching the dog’s neck and choking the air from its body. Half of her face is missing from the damage I have caused her. The flesh is jagged, sprinkling blood with each tug that lurches her body. The eye on the side of her face that I attacked hangs loose from its socket, rolling up and down her cheekbone with the motion of a marble on a string. Her lip is torn and it lays flayed, exposing her once white teeth. Her red hair blends into a darker shade with her blood caught in its strands and the sight of her paralyzes me with fear.
    “Beth!” Ginjer screams for my help, but all I can do is stand here, blocking Genny and shaking my head with no words forming on my lips. Not even Genny, with her aspirations to save the world, is trying to guilt me into action with condescendingly strained words. She stares with wide eyes as we watch the tug-of-war.
    With a sharp popping sound, Mintzy’s neck breaks from the strain on his body and his legs go still and limp. Ginjer recoils as if she has been punched, dropping her half of the dog. It is quickly set upon by the female, tearing into fur and flesh with greedy hands. She rakes the meat of the dog into her gaping mouth leaving the blood to pour and pool on the stone porch around her. It steams in the night air, casting an illusion of Mintzy’s soul escaping from the tattered form of his body. The three of us are fear-struck, silent and repulsed in a weaving combination of emotions as we watch the female devour the dog with finger sucking satisfaction. With a steady resolve, Ginjer pulls from the waistband of her slacks the pistol I was worried about earlier. The sound of the shot bounces off the surrounding crypts before rippling through the cemetery around us. The female now rests face down into her prize. She is truly dead this time and it’s something that I, and nature, had failed to accomplish before. I guess I forgot to reset the safety after all.

Chapter 5
    G injer was silent for the rest of the dragging night. She didn’t cry over Mintzy or wail with exaggerated memories of the dog. I almost wished she had. The woman was as silent as the fog and just as thick with depression. A voice I have tried to avoid for so many years, I now found myself secretly wishing it would speak if for no other reason than to break the suffocating tension surrounding us.
    Genny was also more reserved than normal. I know she was searching her soul for the right words to say to bring comfort to Ginjer. There are no words to encompass the grief that these days keep holding for us. We have suffered deaths by the facts of old age, tragic accidents, or debilitating illnesses before now. Now death wears the faces of real monsters delivering real horrors. There are no words to take that suffering away.
    I dreaded bringing Ginjer along today. The store I have scouted with hopes for supplies I already knew would gain me complaints from Genny. Now it may be the final buttons for Ginjer’s sanity. I don’t know if I have the courage to push them. Before Mintzy’s death last night, I would have danced across them.
    “If you want to stay here, Ginjer,” I say to gain her attention, “we would understand.” My voice sounds overly large in the crypt. It is the first voice to echo against these walls since we closed the door last night sealing us in the unspoken depression.
    “No. I want to come. I don’t want to sit in here. I would have to clean it. I understand it is what it is, but you could at least organize it if you are