The Cabin Is Always Hungry

LAST RESORT

Part 8

It’s a strange thing to attend your own funeral.

Everyone I knew gathered at the cemetery to say goodbye to me, to weep and share some of their cherished memories of me while I—obviously—was still very much alive. They shared anecdotes, some heartfelt, some awkward, and some I’d rather they not tell. Then came the burial. I couldn’t bear to look at my parents when the casket was lowered into the ground just after the priest delivered the homily and my committal rites.

After that, there was a small potluck to feed the attendees under a large gazebo not far from my tombstone (There were several gazebos around the cemetery). Aunt Abby hired a local catering company to serve some Mexican fusion dishes. Next to the table was a collage of all my photos from when I was a baby to my current yearbook photo. A large, leather-bound book emblazoned with flowers and vines lay at the center, with a note card inviting guests to write and share some fun and positive memories they had with me.

And also a chance to say their last goodbye.

After this, I’d read them front to back and then back to front, over and over, until the words were imprinted into my memory. Whenever I saw someone writing on it, I smiled, wondering what they wrote about me and their goodbye. Sometimes, I’d catch several smiles while they wrote in the book. Sometimes, they cried again.

But I won’t stray too far, I mused. I’m still here, watching.

Most of my extended family were there for my funeral.

Even though my parents—Brandon and Vivian, or Vivie, Castle—only had one child (aka me), my extended family tree had many branches.

Aunt Abby and Uncle Kerry mostly organized this on behalf of my parents, who had three children: Claire, Charlie, and cute little four-year-old baby Christopher. They were fond of naming their children with the first letter C. My father and Uncle Kerry were brothers, but when they were young, they married my mom and my aunt a year apart, who were known as the Shannon sisters then.

My father and Uncle Kerry had two younger siblings: Uncle Edgar and Aunt Marisa.

Uncle Edgar was Drunk Uncle Edgar, and yes, he was drinking during my wake and also during my funeral. Typical, as always. He was the wild child of the Castle family (and still is) and was already married three times and divorced twice. He and his ex-wife, Constance Castle (and yes, she kept the last name even now), had two children together: Julius and Liam. I called them Tweedledum and Tweedledee because they were very in sync with their one shared brain cell. Then, he and Constance divorced and married Jeanine, with whom he had a daughter, Sabrina. While Julius and Liam surprised me with the stupidest but endearing shit, my cousin Sabrina emulated every blonde mean girl trope from the 2000s and made it her personality. She scared me sometimes, especially when she held a grudge.

Then, there’s the youngest of the Castle siblings, Aunt Marisa, who married Stephen of the San Francisco Pearsons, a very, very nouveau riche family, who claimed their wealth from the tech boom in the late 80s. I didn’t get to see a lot of Aunt Marisa, but she and Uncle Stephen had one daughter, Ruby, who just turned ten last summer. Aunt Marisa also took my “death” the hardest and had been in Point Hope for three weeks, attending to my parents’ needs along with Aunt Abby. She and Uncle Stephen used to have a son, Jack, who died from his sleep when he was only fourteen months old. That was several years ago, but Marisa was still grieving his death until today.

My death just pushed it all up to the surface and opened old wounds.

My grandparents from my mother’s side, George and Joanna Shannon, also attended my funeral. They had retired from their university jobs and moved to Florida, so I didn’t really get to see them much during my teens.

They were all there at the funeral except for Uncle Ambrose—Mom, and Aunt Abby’s younger brother. He couldn’t attend the funeral because he was in Switzerland rock-climbing some mountain for a German TV show (or was it the French?), and he couldn’t leave because of a contract obligation, which was typical of him. Growing up, I always heard about all the adventures that Uncle Ambrose got into abroad. In the eighteen years I was alive, I probably only saw him five times, and that was giving me tokens and other knick-knacks he bought during his travels. Instead, he watched my funeral through Zoom while he was dangling two thousand feet from a mountain’s face.

“Mark will hate all of this attention and the crying,” Charlie groaned. He and my cousins sat on the farthest bench table from the crowd of older people. “He’ll probably say just bury me and get over it already.”

Julius and Liam scrunched their brows, and Julius laughed. “Hey, do you remember the seventh-grade talent show? Didn’t he try to rap? Wasn’t it based on some poem he wrote or something?”

If only I had a face, it would have turned beet red by now, and the flood of memories that filtered through my mind was enough for me to recoil back to the cabin and hide there forever.

No, don’t—!

“Oh my gosh, shush!” Claire said. “Mark made us all swear not to.”

“But—”

“Julius, no! It’s bad form if we say it out loud with his grave next to us,” Charlie said. “The soil is literally freshly turned. Do you want to get haunted?”

“By Mark? I thought you don’t believe in that kind of stuff.”

“I don’t, but it’s still bad manners, okay? It’s disrespectful.”

“Yeah, Julius. The guy’s already dead. No need to murder him again,” Liam laughed, but Charlie smacked him on the shoulder. “Ow! What the fuck was that for?”

“Too soon, man. Too soon,” Charlie said. “And watch your language.” Charlie shot Ruby a look at the end of the table, eating a slice of peach pie.

Ruby shrugged. “I’ve heard worse in school. Fuck. See? I can also say it.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re like ten,” Charlie said, though he tried to hide his laugh.

Ruby took another bite of the pie. “When you live in the city as I do, in the roughest parts of town…”

“You live in Palo Alto inside a gated community for tech bros like your dad,” Julius said. “Palo Alto. Not Gotham.”

“What’s Gotham?”

“Are you serious? You haven’t seen Batman?”

“I’m ten.”

“So what? All kids know Batman.”

Ruby shrugged again, whipped cream creating a mustache above her upper lip. “Same thing, same thing,” she said with a devilish smirk.

“Urgh, you guys are so lame,” Sabrina huffed. “Honestly, I’m getting bored.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Sabrina. Are funerals supposed to be fun?” Claire asked sarcastically.

“My boyfriend is literally at Disneyland right now with the rest of the football players and the cheer squad, the latter of which I am a co-captain of, and I had a ticket ready since June. It’s a school function, and I’m missing it.”

Julius snickered. “Well, I’m sorry that our cousin’s funeral inconvenienced you, Sab.”

“Oh. My. God. I told you a billion times not to call me that, you bonehead.” Sabrina got up from the table. “You know what? I’m gonna take a break from being sad. You guys should, too. Do you know it’s bad for your mental health to be sad for more than twenty-four hours? Seriously, I saw it on TikTok. Heart attacks. A stroke. And I think if Mark is watching us right now, he doesn’t want us to be sad and get a coronary, okay? So, I’m gonna go and cleanse my mind.”

“I didn’t know we could take sad breaks,” Liam murmured, but Sabrina ignored him.

“And where are you going?” Charlie asked Sabrina.

“To FaceTime my boyfriend over there, far away from all of you because I know you’ll say stupid shit and make up gross sounds behind my back.” She glared particularly at her brothers.

Julius and Liam snickered again from clearly an inside joke that only made Sabrina more infuriated and stomped off the gazebo. Julius quickly updated Charlie and Claire that Sabrina’s boyfriend was banned from the house when Jeanine caught them making out in Sabrina’s bedroom with the door shut. Sabrina swore nothing was going to happen, but Jeanine wasn’t having it, so she grounded her for two months. They’ve been at each other’s throats since then. It was not strange that Sabrina and her mother argued constantly from the pettiest of shit. Ever since Sabrina learned how to talk, she had been a nightmare to Jeanine. To be fair, Uncle Edgar did spoil her a lot, much to Julius and Liam’s annoyance.

I wished I was there on the bench table with them. I wished I could hang out with my cousins like the old times, and even if Sabrina was acting out, she still cared for all of us. And yes, even me. I knew she had her own strange way of showing it. With [ Fractal Omniscience ] passively active, my cousins were grieving my death in their own ways (and the rest of my family, too), distracting themselves with humor and some banter, and yes, food. Exhibit A: This freaking funeral potluck. They were afraid that if they stopped to think, even for one moment, then my death would just fill them up with rage and helplessness. They didn’t want to picture me tied up on a slab of stone as the cult sliced me up. The news focused on that macabre detail for a week.

Suddenly, the gazebo went silent, eyes trained on the new arrival by the porch steps. Tessa Burton lingered at the landing, flanked by her parents and her friends. Charlene and Daisy waved to my parents while Paul and Lana stood awkwardly behind the Burtons. Tessa looked like she wanted to disappear. But that was impossible. Everyone knew her—the last survivor of the satanic massacre—practically a celebrity in town, maybe the entire state. According to the police, based on some of the injuries that the cultists suffered, Tessa Burton fought back hard against her kidnappers.

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The press called her The Final Girl of Point Hope. Even The New York Times ran a two-page spread on her ordeal and eventual escape. But none of that mattered to Tessa. Inside, she just wanted to be normal again. Maybe forgotten.

Her presence halted everyone in their tracks, but my mother acted first. Her face softened, and she strode toward Tessa and embraced her. Mom thanked the Burtons for coming and accepting her invitation and encouraged the rest of Tessa’s friends to help themselves to the food. There was still plenty left from the chafing dishes.

Tessa and I were not in the same friend group but shared a few classes since she was in the same grade as me. Though we wouldn’t call ourselves best friends, we grew up together in this town. As Tessa’s mom fixed her a plate, Tessa was drawn to the leather-bound book on the memorial table and opened it to an empty page. She began to write.

When she was done writing her piece, Claire walked up to her. “Hi, Tess.”

Tessa’s eyes widened, and she hugged her. “Oh my God! Claire? I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Welp, I have to be,” Claire said and hugged her back.

“Oh. Right. I’m sorry. I’m a bit scatterbrained since I woke up.”

“No, don’t be.” Claire squeezed her arm. “I’m just glad you’re here. And I mean here, here. After everything that happened to you and Mark…” She trailed off.

Tessa forced a smile. “Thanks. I’m here for him and for the Castles. What we both went through was…”

“—something no one should go through. Ever,” Claire finished and gave her another hug.

Claire was Tessa’s babysitter and her Big Sister during Freshman orientation. I remembered how inseparable they were before Claire left for college.

Tessa struggled not to cry. She took a steady breath and confessed, “My parents and I are moving out of town by the end of the semester.”

Claire blinked. “Where?” Then, quickly– “Oh, shoot! I don’t mean to be nosy.”

“No, no. It’s fine. We have extended family in Denver. My mom sent the transcripts to my new school early, so I don’t have to worry. We can’t live in that house anymore, you know?”

Claire nodded. “No, you don’t have to explain, Tess. I’m happy that you’re okay. I hear Colorado has the same weather as Oregon, except there’s more snow and dry in the summer. There’s also a lot of hiking trails.”

Tessa frowned. “I don’t think I’ll ever hike or venture into the woods again. It gives me the creeps now.”

Before Claire could reply, a new voice cut through the air, sharp and furious.

“What the fuck are they doing here?” Charlie suddenly snapped, eyes flared with anger. He shot his head toward the gazebo landing, where two people stood awkwardly under the gaze of several glares and hushed whispers.

Charlie’s face darkened, eyes locked on the intruders.

I recognized them immediately.

Vivian and Xavier Yates—Ashley and Dave’s kids.

They were there when I transformed their house (and the nearby neighborhood) into a temporary dungeon. All at once, the events of that morning came flooding to me like a tidal wave. If Vivian and Xavier had decided not to go to school that day, they might have been reduced to their essence along with their parents and their neighbors.

God, I was so fucking hungry that day. Worse than this voluntary hunger strike I was on.

When the police found the fake journals that Demon and Oracle planted in Hodge’s bedroom, all the names of the cultists were on those pages, along with Ashley and Dave Yates. Every crime they committed was written in vivid detail. It didn’t even cross my mind what I should do with the Yates children. Besides Jenna Batten, none of the other cultists had kids. Vivian and Xavier were now living with their grandparents on the south side of town, and they had been hiding from everyone for the past six weeks. Their grandparents even pulled them out of school for the rest of the semester, and the school just sent them the necessary paperwork and curriculum for homeschooling so that Vivian and Xavier didn’t fall behind. A few shameless reporters hounded them when Ashley and Dave’s names were made known to the press. Still, eventually, they got bored and searched for other prey for their sensationalized accounts of the massacre.

And now they were here at my funeral.

Though Tessa and I were acquaintances, I had little contact with Vivian and Xavier—maybe a word or two in a few classes we shared. They were a grade lower than me and hung around a completely different crowd. But why are they here?

Before I could turn around to see what my parents were doing, Charlie, Julius, Liam, and Erica were already marching toward Vivian and Xavier. Even some of Tessa’s friends—Paul and Daisy—joined the posse. Erica tried to persuade Charlie from blowing up in front of everyone.

“Babe, there’s people here,” Erica pleaded.

“You two are not invited,” Charlie said. “Family and friends only.”

“We’re Mark’s friends, too,” Vivian said. “We have every right to be here.”

Charlie scoffed. “Oh? Since when? Mark never mentioned both of you. Ever.”

“Look, I don’t want to make a scene, Charlie,” Xavier said. “We’re just here to pay our respects, okay? Is that a crime? Teammate to teammate. We lost family, too.”

Clearly that was the wrong thing to say because my cousin turned beet red. “Respect? You call what your psycho mom and dad did to him respect? Do you think we owe you one? And just because we played football together doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

“Our parents wouldn’t do that,” Vivian insisted. “It’s still an active investigation. The police didn’t confirm it. My parents are also victims of this tragedy, Charlie. They’re not part of the cult or whatever. I’ve lived with them all my life and have never seen them do that. It’s impossible!”

“Haven’t you seen the news lately?” Daisy pointed out. “The police and the FBI already released a press statement a week ago. Your dad and your mom are part of it, so quit your bullshit.”

Behind her, Paul gave Charlie and Julius a nod that he had their backs. Xavier was not a big guy, but he also didn’t look like the wind could blow him over.

“Should we do something?” Tessa whispered to Claire, concerned.

Claire glanced around the gazebo; everyone was watching. She groaned, “Yep, my brother’s going to make an ass out of himself.”

They marched toward the others, their voices rising higher and louder. It was then I noticed that there were five other people behind Xavier and Vivian. The big guy with a mustache and sideburns was their uncle, Kevin Yates, Dave’s brother. Next to him was his girlfriend, Sheila Lewis, ready to throw down by taking off her hooped earrings and securing her Chanel bag around her elbow. The other three knuckleheads were Kevin Yates’s bastard friends—Ray, Jared, and Lope—buzzed (or half-drunk) from two or three cans of beer already before they came to my funeral. If I remember correctly, one of them had an assault charge against their ex.

They didn’t even bother to dress in black, I thought. Xavier and Vivian did.

“My brother had nothing to do with this!” Kevin screamed at everyone in the crowd. “He’s a good man! Don’t believe the news! Fake news! Fake news!”

“Uncle Kevin, please…” Vivian begged.

“Alright. Time to shut this idiot up,” Julius hissed.

“Hey! Don’t you come walking up—”

Kevin Yates didn’t even finish the sentence when a curled fist flew from the side and punched him square on the jaw. Julius froze for a split second as my father grabbed Kevin by the collar and threw another punch.

Like an enormous crash, chaos spread like wildfire across the gazebo. Everyone was screaming, throwing things (even food), crying, and begging for the others to stop.

David Dilworth, the police chief for PHPD, along with some of my dad’s cop friends, jumped in to break up the fight. Out in the periphery, Katie Reeves from KGWA in Portland filmed the brawl with her phone, surely to make the seven o’clock news tonight. It took over four minutes to pry everyone off each other and for Chief Dilworth and the other cops to kick the Yates and their friends from the funeral while Kevin threatened to press charges. I noticed Kevin was smiling.

He got what he came for: A scene, I thought bitterly.

“Jesus Christ, Brandon. You shouldn’t have done that,” Dilworth said. “And in your own son’s funeral?”

Dad sat on the gazebo steps while my mother tended to the cut on her wound. “The motherfucker deserved it for crashing it. And using his own niece and nephew?”

“Way to go, Uncle B!” Julius hooted from the railing, but Aunt Abby smacked him on the shoulder—the bad side where Xavier threw a cup. He grimaced while Uncle Edgar gave Dad a cold can of beer.

“As far as I can tell, he needs more than a beating,” Uncle Edgar said and sat beside Dad.

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Dilworth said. “Are you gonna press charges, Vivie?”

“This is not the first time they harassed us, David,” Mom said. “We’re going to file a restraining order. They’ve been causing a ruckus online and posting very disturbing stuff on Facebook that everything was a lie, and—”

“It’s upsetting my wife, Dilworth. Upsetting everyone. Can’t you do something about that?”

Chief Dilworth sighed. “Look, I’ll talk to them again. If they harass more of the other victim’s families, I’ll threaten them with jail time, okay? Come by the station tomorrow, and I’ll give you the proper forms for the restraining order. Heck, call your lawyer.”

“Thanks, chief,” Dad said, then turned to Mom and said, “Sorry about the mess, love. I shouldn’t—”

“No. Don’t be. Like you said, the motherfucker deserved it.” Dad smiled and gave Mom a kiss on the forehead.

Sabrina walked up to the gazebo after ending her FaceTime call with her boyfriend, confused as to why half of the potluck table was now upside down, all the food and paper plates were scattered everywhere, and half of her family now had cuts across their faces, busted lips, and bruised cheeks.

“Um…did I miss something?” Sabrina asked.

Claire and Tessa chuckled. “Cuz, you miss one heck of drama,” Claire said. “Sit down. I’ll tell you all about it.”

Behind Claire and Tessa, Demon Jessica leaned against one of the gazebo pillars and raised her phone close to her lips. “Besides the very entertaining fistfight, the service was quite nice, my lord.” She picked one tortilla chip from an overturned bowl next to her and munched on it. “And your dad can throw quite a punch.”

“I didn’t know he had that in him,” I said.

“I can see where you got your temper from.”

Demon turned to watch the Yates jump onto their trucks and drive away from the cemetery. Kevin was behind the wheel, glaring at my parents as he passed. His girlfriend, Sheila, opened the sunroof, climbed up, and threw two middle fingers at my parents, cackling.

My stomach growled again, and Demon sensed it. “You need to feed, my lord,” she said.

“I still need to do some vetting before I do.”

Demon thinned her lips. “Well…Oracle and I discussed a few delvers for you to try.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Without consulting me?”

“You were busy making sure your family was okay, and there was this funeral after all. We know you are preoccupied with that, so we did our due diligence to make your life easier. We care about you, my lord. We can feel your hunger, and you were not looking too good the past week.”

“I’m thankful for your concern, Demon, but I am fine. Really.”

“You have plenty of crystals to spare six teleportation uses. Three thousand crystals easy.”

“I only need three delvers to trigger a scenario for the guild to pay up. Wait, why six?”

“You know, vampires are really good at assessing hunger and fasting. The Duke thinks six will do the trick to satiate your hunger for the next six weeks if you want to fast again. We can do it tonight. Your family did a potluck for your funeral. It’s more than fair for you to indulge.”

I sighed. “And where am I going to find six people?”

“No need to waste your time on that, my lord. Oracle will send you the details right now.”

Oracle’s old body was still inside the cabin’s study. I opened the lone PDF document on the screen, and Kevin Yates’s face popped up on the computer. The rest of the pages involved his friends.

“The Yates?”

“The Yates, especially Kevin’s buddies, are causing a lot of trouble around town,” Demon said. The Battens and the Torres (the extended families of Jenna and Rebecca) had already moved out of Point Hope weeks ago after being hounded by the press and basically ran off by the residents. The rest of the cultists didn’t have many extended family in town.

Except for the Yates.

They refused to leave out of pride. And out of stupidity.

“I know their types in Hell. They’re not the type to back down, my lord. So, I thought, we should do something about them before they make things worse.”

This incident at my funeral was the second time they’ve harassed my mom and dad. The last time was during the news conference. “If they caused anything egregious, I’ll deal with them personally. But…” I trailed off.

“Isn’t this egregious enough? Crashing your own funeral? Upsetting your parents?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“They need to be punished, my lord. And you are hungry. So, so hungry. No one will miss them if they disappear. Half of Point Hope might actually thank you for it. They’ve been a nuisance even before Ashley and Dave joined Hodge’s little club.”

“And what about Xavier and Vivian?”

“They’re seventeen. They can delve,” Demon said nonchalantly.

I clenched my fists, trying to drown out the hunger curling through my gut. It’s not just a craving. It’s a need. And I know exactly how to fill it. If not them, then it would be different delvers. No matter what I chose, someone would suffer. Always. Death Cores were good at that.

“We don’t need teleportation and wasting thousands of crystals,” I said. “I think I know how to lure them in.”