“Yeah, it’s me,” Franklin says.
“You have finally lost it,” she says. “You’ve been obsessed with the candy people for so long that you’ve started dressing like them.”
Susan looks at the bleeding child on their floor. “What the hell did you do to that kid?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Franklin says.
“You’re even killing kids?” Sarah says. “Are you eating them, too? You sick fuck!”
Jujy gets between Franklin and his wives.
“He’s not your mate anymore,” Jujy tells them. “He is mine now. We have an egg.”
Sarah looks at her. “Who’s this psycho bitch?”
“I’m his dominant,” Jujy says. “You are never to speak to him again.”
“Just get the fuck out of here, you freaks!” Susan cries.
“We can’t leave,” Franklin says. “We need to stay here for a while. Just for tonight.”
“Fuck no!” Susan says. “You leave now.”
David gets closer, his bat raised over his head. “Get the fuck out or you’re fucking dead!”
Franklin pulls the sword out of his cane and points it at David.
“We can’t go,” he says. “Let us stay and you won’t get hurt.”
His wives laugh at him.
Sarah gets in his face. “You’re so pathetic, Franklin. You are the biggest loser I’ve ever known. I married you because I thought you were going to be rich…” Then she grabs the sword out of Franklin’s hand, his infected muscles too weak to prevent her from prying open his fingers. She points it at him. “But you turned out to be just a fucking joke.”
As she jabs the sword at Franklin, Jujy catches her arm and throws her across the room. Susan and David gasp as Jujy reveals her razor sharp teeth to them.
“She’s a real one,” Susan says, trembling. “The bitch is a real candy person.”
David swings his bat at Jujy, but she dodges out of the way and cuts through his neck with her butterscotch fingernails. Blood sprays onto Susan as he falls to the ground. Before Franklin can stop her, Jujy breaks Susan’s neck and then lunges at Sarah as the crying young woman runs for the door. Troy watches from under the table, as Jujy rips the woman into shreds with her claws and teeth.
“He’s my mate!” Jujy says, between bites. “He can’t have a human wife!”
Sarah’s screams echo through the apartment as the candy woman eats her alive. Jujy doesn’t kill her quickly. She tears open the woman’s stomach and chews her insides. She eats her way through to the woman’s heart. Sarah doesn’t die until the candy woman bites into her heart and tears it out of her chest.
When she is done, Jujy spits the bleeding organ onto Sarah’s corpse and says, “She tastes terrible.” She turns to Franklin. “How could you have mated with her?”
Jujy wraps the egg in a warm blanket that Sarah had been sleeping on. Then she presses her body against it.
“We need to get rid of these bodies,” Franklin says.
“I don’t want to eat them,” Jujy says.
“No,” Franklin says. “There’s no time. We have to get rid of them.”
“Put them outside,” Jujy says.
“I’ll take care of it,” Franklin says.
He puts their bodies into garbage bags and throws them out of the window into the alley.
“I need to go down there and hide them,” Franklin says.
“I should be doing that and you should be sitting on the egg,” Jujy says.
“This is my world,” Franklin says. “I know it better than you.”
Jujy looks away from him.
Franklin peeks at Troy under the kitchen table. “I’ll be right back, Troy. Then we’ll go to a hospital.”
Troy shakes his head.
“Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
Troy holds his neck and says, “I wanna go home.”
“You’ll go home soon,” Franklin says.
Before he leaves, Franklin plugs a flash drive into his brain and copies all of the information on the candy people to it. He puts it into his suit pocket, then turns to the boy.
“Just in case something happens to me,” he tells Troy, patting his pocket.
The boy nods.
Franklin drags the bodies down the alley to the dumpsters one at a time. As he pushes the last one up into the garbage, he hears footsteps coming up behind him. The smell of artificial banana flavoring fills the air.
When Franklin turns around, he sees three candy people approaching him. Green Beard, Blue Gumball, and Wedding Cake Head.
“Where is she?” Blue Gumball asks Franklin.
Franklin doesn’t respond.
“Where is your dominant?” says Wedding Cake head. “Where is Jujube?”
“Submissives aren’t allowed to leave the cave,” Green Beard says. “Why are you out here? Surely, it is not to hunt.”
Franklin looks around the dumpster, searching for something he could use as a weapon.
“Who are you?” Green Beard says. “I do not recognize you.”
“I am Sour Apple,” Franklin says.
“You’re the one Black Licorice was speaking of,” Green Beard says. “You’re the one he suspected to be human.”
“The human who killed Float,” says Wedding Cake Head.
They move in closer. Franklin steps back.
“You are human, aren’t you?” Green Beard says. “That is why you came here. You were returning home.”
“That’s not true,” Franklin says.
“Don’t deny it,” Green Beard says.
“We can smell the human behind the candy,” says Wedding Cake Head.
Franklin spots what looks to be a shotgun behind the dumpster. He examines it a little closer and it really is a shotgun. He thinks it can’t be possible. Why would there be a shotgun behind a dumpster? But then he thinks of reasons for a shotgun to be there. Maybe a teenager bought a shotgun and hid it here so his parents wouldn’t find out. Maybe a criminal stashed it here while running from the cops. Maybe a bitter wife found her husband’s hidden illegal gun collection and decided to throw it out while he was at work. No matter what the case, Franklin has a shotgun. He hopes it has bullets.
“You are friends of Licorice?” Franklin asks, a little more confident now that he has a weapon nearby.
They come closer.
“You know that he is dead, right?”
They stop and look at each other.
“He has not been seen in days,” Green Beard says.
“I killed him,” Franklin says.
“Impossible,” says Blue Gumball. “No human could kill Licorice.”
“I did,” he says. “And if you don’t get out of here I will kill all of you.”
They laugh.
Franklin goes for the shotgun. He jumps behind the dumpster and grabs it. But once he picks it up, he realizes that it is not a real shotgun. It is only a toy.
But Franklin points the toy at them as if it were real. “Stay back.”
The candy men look at the toy. They either realize it is not a real weapon or have no idea what shotguns are.
“Kill him,” Green Beard says.
