Session Seven

## Hungry, Horny, Complicated

The sunrise is beautiful over Crystal Mills. The waves lap gently on the beach. We see Crow laying on the sand, washed up after their recent death. Her arm washes up beside her. She lifts her phone and sees a text from Kareem: I think I’m falling in love with you.

We see the sunrise from a window in the Armstrong and see Juno peacefully sleeping in one bed. Jason is in the other, making out with someone. He freezes for a moment then kisses the person and falls back, satiated. Maddox lays on the bed beside him, looking pleased and dazed. The tail end of a  brainslug makes its way into his nose.

The weekend begins and Ashlynn uncomfortably dresses a newly-incorporated Maddox in a matching pink Juicy tracksuit. The Hive heads to the Grill for bottomless mimosas and brunch to nurse their hangovers.

Angel sneaks back home, fixing herself up in her beat-up car. 20$ for pizza and a note, reading that her mom wouldn’t be home until late tonight, sits on the counter. Angel flops into her bed, pulling out her phone to text Juno.

Crow flips back and forth between Juno’s drunken apology and Kareem’s confession, unsure of how to respond to either. She takes a bath in the Moonpool to clear her head and clean off the sand from their death the night before.

Juno invites Angel over to Ashlynn’s now that everyone is gone, so Angel gets dressed up and leaves a note for David next to her mom’s. As she goes to walk out, her sister asks if she’s leaving too. Angel gently says yes and Elizabeth (Libbie) gets upset that nobody does anything fun with her! Angel follows her and reassures her that they can have a Barbie movie and cookie night once she returns. Libbie sniffles and nods her approval.

Sitting at the Moonpool, Crow calls Kareem and asks him to meet her. As Kareem pulls in, Crow paces at the top of the falls, visibly anxious. The front of Kareem’s hoodie is soaked in blood. Crow tells him to wash off and join her at the top to… talk. Kareem joins Crow, his eyes blank and hungry. He immediately goes in for a kiss which Crow returns… hesitantly. Crow asks him what happened after the two jumped. Kareem details his night from waking up on the beach to eating a woman. Crow is alarmed, telling him they can’t eat people, only animals. Crow asks him to call her the next time he gets hungry and he agrees, putting his hand on hers. Crow pushes for details on the woman, deciding they have to go find her body to hide it.

As they turn the corner to the beach, they find a crime scene cordoned off. Crow tells Kareem to turn the car around and he does so… slowly. A police officer from the scene looks over, watching the two as they drive off. The two leave and head to Kareem’s house, Kareem helping Crow sneak into his bedroom upstairs. He kisses Crow and Crow keeps her cool, fighting the hunger to indulge in intimacy with him. She moves to open his bedroom door and he stops her. She asks him, over and over, what he’s hiding in the rest of the house. He asks her not to be mad, promising to clean up. He opens the door and a wave of putrid air hits Crow. Several flies buzz around. As Crow moves through the house, Kareem stands perfectly still in his room. First, Crow finds a body in the living room sitting upright. She looks from the body to a wall nearby, seeing pictures of Kareem and a woman and the now-eaten man. Another body, in a mailman’s uniform, lays behind a chair. In the kitchen, Kareem’s mom is the newest corpse. All of the bodies are partially to mostly eaten. Crow, now angry, calls Kareem down. Kareem offers to bury the bodies like he did with the dogs. Crow chastises him, telling him that the cops are going to know he was partially responsible. Kareem brings up several terrible plans, including running away. Crow sends Kareem to the Moonpool while she figures out what to do. She heads to Ashlynn’s.

While Angel and Juno hang out in Ashlynn’s apartment, Ashlynn returns with the Hive. Jason and Maddox are affectionate, which weirds Angel out. Juno thanks Ashlynn for helping them, crying into her chest. Ashlynn comforts them tenderly. All the cronies coo. With everyone reconvened at the apartment, Ashlynn organizes the group for their extracurricular activities. For a moment, the Hive is in perfect formation (a hexagon around Ashlynn), before they disperse and form smaller groups. Ashlynn sends out the groups to do tasks for citizens around Crystal Mills, sending Juno and Charlie together to help hang paintings for an old lady. They all leave with flyers for Ashlynn’s volunteer group: the Busy Bee Volunteers. After the groups leave, only Angel and Ashlynn are left. The two settle down to watch a zombie movie and make out. Angel pushes for more details on Ashlynn’s relationship with her cronies, suspicious. Ashlynn says that some people just need a leader and gains a string on Angel for her snooping. Ashlynn smiles at Angel, telling her that things just tend to work out for her. The two kiss. A knock sounds at the door and Ashlynn’s head whips around.

Crow, having been let up by a slacking bellhop, stands in the doorway looking visibly stressed and nervous. Crow tells Ashlynn that things have gotten worse with Kareem. Ashlynn’s eyes narrow. Angel asks if Kareem is Crow’s weird boyfriend from last night. Crow nods. Ashlynn tells Angel to wait there and takes Crow into a bedroom, closing the door behind the two of them. Angel stares at the door, making a face of displeasure.

In the bedroom, Crow tells Ashlynn that Kareem killed his parents and that she doesn’t know what to do. Ashlynn tells her to call the fucking cops! The two argue, Ashlynn accusing Crow of not even trying to figure it out. Crow tells Ashlynn that they don’t want Kareem to be in the system because he’s dead. Ashlynn groans, agreeing that they don’t want people poking their nose into things. They both sigh, wondering what they're going to tell Angel.

Outside, Angel fixes her makeup in a compact mirror. She sighs wistfully and says she would give anything to hear what they’re saying. Her reflection catches her eye and tells her to give it a listen. She focuses, gazing into the abyss, and the compact’s reflection transforms into a view of the bedroom from a mirror on the wall. She hears snippets of their conversation: “Kareem’s killing people… you have a lot of power… what are we gonna tell her?”. As Ashlynn leaves the room, Angel clicks her compact shut. Ashlynn tells Angel that Crow came to her with a serious problem and tells her she doesn’t want Angel involved in anything that could endanger her. Angel looks scorned, but says she understands and leaves. As soon as she exits the Armstrong she pulls out her phone and texts Chastity, You’re never gonna believe this shit…

Tylar returns alone and immediately moves to comfort Ashlynn. Ashlynn scowls at Crow and orders them to text Chastity, Hey. There’s some freak shit happening and I need help. Ashlynn and I need help. The phone rings immediately.

Ashlynn takes the phone and the two converse, with Ashlynn telling Chastity they need to put their heads together. Chastity agrees, but says she has church stuff all day and that she can’t use the car after 9pm. Ashlynn coldly tells her that they’ll solve it in the meantime and that if she misses it, she misses it. She hangs up the phone. Ashlynn pulls out her laptop and gazes into the abyss on how to kill someone who’s returned from the dead. Tylar reads over her shoulder, translating German, Dutch, and Arabic articles telepathically. She finds an ancient Arabic article on a ritua to kill a Ghoul at the burial site with animal blood and complex magical spells. She also finds articles stating that once the walking dead are discovered, they should be eliminated immediately to halt the rapid infection. Ashlynn glowers at Crow over her laptop and asks how Kareem died. Crow tells her he doesn’t know, and that she didn’t remember how she died when she woke up. She only remembered after Harper killed her. Crow realizes that she never saw Kareem die, with him having likely survived the jump from the pier. Ashlynn texts Harper, dismissing Crow and rallying the Hive.

Angel drives home and continues her conversation with Chastity. Chastity tells Angel that Ashlynn called her for help, but that it was really weird. Angel bites her lip, feeling put out. Her reflection doesn’t bite its lip and commiserates with her. Angel huffs and snaps her phone shut, stomping inside to change and write in her journal. She posts a dramatic poem about loneliness on her MySpace. As she mopes around and completes her chores, she opens a cabinet to find a half full bottle of vodka: her mom’s favorite. She slams the cabinet shut and stands, her reflection catching her eye in the window. Her reflection comforts her, before offering to help with her mom and the Ashlynn situation if she could just do a favor. Angel asks what it needs. Her reflection grins. It tells her to visit the Abandoned House, to go upstairs to a bedroom, and to take a bag hidden inside a closet. Angel agrees. She offers to get Libbie her favorite dinner and leaves for the Abandoned House.

Ashlynn, upon not getting a response from Harper, taps into her stream of consciousness. For a moment she sees through Harper, feeling her excitement and frenetic energy, and sees her drive an unfamiliar car into the parking lot of the Armstrong with shaky, blood-spattered hands. Ashlynn rushes outside to find Harper standing next to a beat-up truck. Harper jumps out immediately, still in her pink tracksuit, now sporting an oversized Carhartt jacket zipped to her chin. She pulls a metal baseball bat out with her. As Ashlynn approaches, she sees a bloody impact point on the bat. She pulls an empty syringe from her pocket with shaky hands and tells Ashlynn, “I did it!” She pulls back a tarp from the truck, excited to show Ashlynn her prize: Diana. Diana is not present in the truck, replaced by a smear of blood and one bloody paw print. Still in the bed is a half-transformed werewolf, Diana’s grandmother. Through chattering teeth, Harper tells Ashlynn that Diana was back there. Ashlynn stares at the smear, realizing Diana was likely a werewolf now. She screams, stomps her foot, and enters her Darkest Self. The Hive reels, affected by her tantrum.

Ashlynn enters Brittany and Broden’s apartment, finding nobody home. She shops his gun selection, picking a shotgun. She writes an IOU with a <3 and leaves $200. She reenters the parking lot, now dressed in all black, and finds Tylar with a white Jeep and a tied up werewolf. She jumps in, orders Harper to get in, and heads for the Moonpool. On the drive, Ashlynn asks if anything else happened. She taps into the memory and watches the events: Harper jumping into Diana’s truck, Harper breaking in through a bedroom window, Harper being attacked and bitten in a dark room, her injecting the werewolf with the syringe. The memories change to flashes of broken memory, tinged in red: Harper grabbing a baseball bat, Diana’s frightened face as she drops the tray of raw meat she was carrying into the bedroom, and of Harper dragging the werewolf and a human Diana into the bed of the truck. Ashlynn returns to her body and exclaims, “JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”.

15 Minutes Before, we see Crow and Kareem at the Moonpool, sitting together and holding hands. Crow asks if he trusts her. He nods. Crow tells Kareem that she needs to kill him. He recoils, upset with her. He rejects the idea of finding out what happened to him, telling Crow that there’s nothing wrong with him, he’s just hungry. Crow comforts him and tells him she’s done it before, but he pulls back, exclaiming that he doesn’t want to die! Crow jumps, pulling her freshly-stolen hunting knife from her jacket and lashing out physically at him. Kareem reacts faster, punching Crow in the head - hard. He yells that he thought they loved him, and that you don’t kill people you love! Crow feels the overwhelming emotions of Kareem’s betrayal and becomes her Darkest Self, attacking Kareem with gnashing teeth. Behind the fight, we see a white Jeep fly into the parking lot. Ashlynn sees the two locked in the fight and lashes out physically herself, putting the pedal to the floor and driving straight into the two. There is a crunch of metal and stone. The Jeep rolls backwards and rocks fall from the walls of the Moonpool, burying the two.

It is silent for a moment. Ashlynn directs Tylar to dump the werewolf into the Moonpool. He does so and returns to the Jeep to quietly sit with Harper. We pan out to see the carnage of the Moonpool, the water stilling after the bubbling from Diana’s grandmother stops, the rockfall from Crow and Kareem’s impromptu burial, and Ashlynn, watching.

Angel pulls up, headlights off, to the Abandoned House. The street is silent. Nothing moves. Angel tries the front door of the Abandoned House, finding it locked. She moves to a broken window, sliding in carefully. She stands and picks glass from her clothes before exploring the musty house. It is in total disrepair, littered with cigarette butts and solo cups. She makes her way over destroyed floorboards and stairs, heading for the bedroom her reflection described. When she opens the door to the bedroom, the scream from a raccoon startles her before it scurries out of sight. In the bedroom she finds a table covered in animal skulls and bones, chalices similar to Chastity’s, and a massive pentagram drawn on the floor. Angel snaps pictures on her phone and turns to the closet to retrieve the bag, but hesitates, looking back at the variety of jewelry on the table. A small mirror shows her reflection. It whispers, “The blue one..”, and Angel grabs the ring. She moves to the closet and digs, finding a dusty Louis Vuitton duffle bag hidden in the back. She grabs the bag and throws it into the spare tire well in her car.

As she slides back into her seat, her phone lights up with a text from Juno: They left me in the parking lot of the Armstrong…. Angel asks if Juno wants a ride, to which Juno accepts. After picking them up, Juno asks Angel if Crystal Mills has wolves… because they just saw one in the parking lot of the Armstrong. The two talk about Angel and Ashlynn’s developing relationship and Ashlynn’s psycho girlfriend. Juno cautions Angel about how Harper may react. Angel comforts Juno and offers to talk to Ashlynn. The two pick up McDonalds for Libbie (and themselves) and return to Angel’s house. Angel offers the Barbie movie and cookie baking night to Juno, who happily accepts. When Angel walks into the kitchen, Juno introduces themself to Libbie. The three eat junk food, bake cookies, and watch Barbie movies together. Angel and Juno bake hip-to-hip, looking very domestic.

Ashlynn returns Harper to the Armstrong, moving into an as-yet unseen room. Alien medical equipment is set up and Jason pulls out a gurney to load Harper onto. Ashlynn waves her hands over a drawer, retrieving a syringe. She injects Harper, who goes limp. Ashlynn turns and calls her mom, calling everyone fucking idiots! Her mom asks her if she knows how many deaths are being reported in Crystal Mills. Ashlynn explains that one of hers has been bitten by a werewolf and her mom tells her that she can be there in the morning. She tells Ashlynn  that she should probably keep Harper sedated… and tied down. Ashlynn agrees and sends the cronies out to get rid of the evidence from today, cleaning prints and driving the truck and Jeep into a nearby quarry. She drives to the Moonpool and sits on the hood of her convertible, staring at the rockpile.

We see the duffle bag still inside of the trunk of Angel’s car. Her reflection knocks on the window to get her attention, but Angel looks away, continuing to watch the movie. Her relection’s face darkens.

Later that night… we see the rockfall at the Moonpool. A hand shakily emerges.