It was a dark and starless night.

In the darkness, in the town that sat atop the Hellmouth, a teenage girl was running for her life.

Definitely not the kind of night she'd had in mind.

Her name was Heidi Lindstrom. Which was a laugh she could have done without. Everybody knew what a girl named Heidi was supposed to be. Sweet. Innocent. Self-sacrificing. She'd put a stop to any hope of that right off.

Heidi Lindstrom was tough, and she made sure she looked it. Hair bleached bone-white stood straight up from her dark-rooted scalp. Jeans as tight as snakeskin covered long legs that, at the moment, were desperately trying to keep on keepin' on. A black leather bomber jacket flapped against her back, the silver studs across the shoulders gleaming dully in the streetlights. Thick-soled black boots encased her feet. Perfect for stepping on anyone who got in her way, but far from good for running.

And she'd been running for a very, very long time now.

So long, she could hardly remember a time when she hadn't been running. A time when she'd felt safe. Or if not safe, then at least in control. A time when her legs didn't feel like rubber and her feet like lead. A time when the air didn't burn going in and out of her lungs.

Long enough for her to feel like she was running in a fever dream, desperately forcing her body to keep on moving even though her thundering heart knew that no speed she could reach was ever going to be fast enough. For all the chance she had, she might as well be moving in slow motion.

She swung left, legs pumping as she pounded up the middle of the street right past a pole holding aloft a green street sign that proudly proclaimed, ELM. She wished she had enough breath left to laugh at the joke. 'Cause this was a nightmare, no two ways about it.

But the truth was, all the streets had tree names in this part of Sunnydale. Oak. Birch. Larch. Poplar. Sycamore. The houses were a whole lot bigger than the one she lived in, every single one fronted by a lush green lawn.

What would happen if I suddenly ran up one of those perfectly manicured front walks? she wondered. Pounded desperately on one perfectly painted front door? Would one of the perfect people who lived there come rushing out to help her?

She did manage to laugh then, a strangled sound wrenched, unbidden, straight from her gut.

Dream on.

This part of Sunnydale might look different, but, in one respect at least, it was the same as the part of town that she came from. Nobody was coming to help her. Not now. Not ever. That was part of what made Sunnydale what it was. There was only one thing she could do, and she was already doing it.

Run. Run. Run.

She veered left onto Oak, traveling down the sidewalk now. Trying not to feel the way her legs had turned loose as rubber bands. The way the breath seared like a hot poker thrust into her lungs.

How close are they? Are they gaining? Heidi risked a quick glance over her shoulder, hoping against hope that maybe the miracle had happened and she'd just been too worn out to notice. Maybe they'd finally given up the chase. Gotten bored. Or maybe she'd finally managed to outrun them.

Yeah, right. That was likely.

They were still back there, just the way she'd known they would be. Two guys. The ones she'd spotted for the first time in the alley behind the Bronze.

Wearing shirts so white they practically glowed in the dark. Khakis with perfect creases exactly down the center of each pant leg. Penny loafers. Ties. The way these guys dressed made parochial school uniforms look like Tommy Hilfiger. When she'd first spotted them, Heidi hadn't been able to help herself. She'd burst out laughing.

But that had been before she'd seen their eyes.

Gleaming. Feral. Yellow. Their foreheads looked funny, some weird deformation, maybe. And they needed some orthodontic attention. Big time. Heidi didn't know what they were, and she didn't want to know. The only thing she wanted was to get away from them.

It hadn't been until they'd started to chase her that she'd realized she actually wanted two things.

Heidi Lindstrom also wanted to stay alive.

She sprinted across the intersection of Oak and Poplar. She knew it wouldn't be much longer now. How could it be? Now, she couldn't feel her legs at all.

Why the hell didn't they just close in and finish her off?

End the game. Go for the kill. It was what she would have done. But oh no, not these guys. They had to hold back. Be different. Play cat and mouse. It would have seriously pissed her off, if she hadn't been so terrified.

Nobody messed with Heidi Lindstrom. Instead, she messed with them. That was the way things were supposed to go down. But nothing had gone the way it was supposed to, tonight. Tonight she'd made a mistake. One that was going to cost her everything.

Why couldn't I have just stayed home?

She was stumbling now, her lower body refusing to cooperate. Sweat from her forehead crept down to sting her eyes.

Would it really have been so hard, just this once, to have stayed at home?

Home, where the walls were so thin she could hear right through them. Where the air always smelled of last night's burned dinner. Home, the place that had never been where the heart was. A place where every angry, hurtful thing that had ever been said lived on, forever. The last place on earth she'd rather be.

Particularly when her mother turned the TV on.

She was running doubled over now, both arms pressed against her stomach, the memory of the sound of the television roaring in her mind. It was that sound more than anything else that had made her do it. Climb out her bedroom window and head for the Bronze.

The one place she could forget all the things she was, and all the things she wasn't. Where the music was loud enough to drown the sound of her mother's TV programs from her mind. Always the same sound, night after night.

Show after show filled with families who were warm and caring. Ones where the kids and parents had their problems, sure, but nothing that a little love and good communication couldn't solve. Shows where sooner or later, the kids would admit that the parents were right, had always been right. Would always be right. They'd confess their sins, their guilt, their love, then be welcomed with open arms and absolved.

Fantasy families, Heidi thought. She gulped air as she swung down Larch, her breath a white-hot needle stitching through her from side to side.

The trouble was, her mom never seemed to get the fact that those families on the television weren't the real thing, just as she never got the fact that even fantasy kids never gave their love away for nothing.

Those fantasy parents had to get their kids' love the old-fashioned way. By earning it. A fact even the writers of lame-o sitcoms seemed to know. But which, in spite of all the hours of dedicated TV watching she put in, had never once penetrated the brain of Heidi's mom.

Her parenting method usually involved pointing out all the ways that Heidi wasn't good enough. And it always involved telling Heidi what a disappointment she was. If Heidi'd had a nickel for every time her mom had said she didn't understand how a daughter of hers could have turned out this way, she could have had a condo on the beach in Malibu by the time she was nine.

She stumbled as she took the curb at Larch and Sycamore. Her own ragged breathing the only sound.

Sycamore was a transition street, not quite as upscale as the streets around it. The streetlights didn't shine as brightly here, assuming that they even worked at all. The houses had big chunks of brown bark in their front yards instead of lawns. Beauty bark, it was actually called.

It wasn't as clean and cool-looking in the hot Southern California summers, but it sure cut down on the water bill, a thing Heidi had heard her mother say ad nauseum. Though Clara Lindstrom didn't care for beauty bark, herself. Which was why, once a year, she had the local garden center deliver a truckload of those nice sparkly white rocks for the Lindstrom front yard.

Heidi straightened up, got her burning eyes to focus on the end of the street, on the one working streetlight and the bus stop just beyond. If she could make it to the bus stop, a brightly lit public place, would the miracle happen? Would the guys behind her back off and leave her alone?

You can make it, she told herself. Come on. Come on.

Desperately, she tried for a last burst of speed. She felt her foot wobble, her ankle twist.

Oh, God, she thought. Oh, please, God, no.

And then she was falling, as if in slow motion. She had time to see the thing that had brought her down. A piece of beauty bark skittered out from underneath her foot to lie in the gutter. Just one piece, but it had been enough.

Time speeded up again to the sound of Heidi's right elbow cracking against the sidewalk, pistol-shot loud. She screamed as blazing pain roared from her elbow to her shoulder. She rolled onto her back, her right arm flopping uselessly out from her body at a funny angle, and then lay still. Desperately sucking air, her vision went from white, to gray, then fuzzy around the edges as Heidi realized she couldn't feel the pain anymore.

Shock, she thought. The only positive spin on the whole situation was that she was left-handed, something the guys behind her didn't know. When they came to get her, she could still throw one last punch. Assuming she'd be able to do anything at all.

How would her mother feel, she wondered, when she realized her only child was gone for good? That Heidi wasn't ever coming home.

Then she heard the sound of hard-soled shoes against the sidewalk. A moment later, two pairs of yellow eyes were bending over her, gleaming down. Even through her dimming vision, Heidi could tell she'd been right the first time, all those blocks ago behind the Bronze.

These guys were the ugliest suckers she'd ever seen in her entire life. Also the most terrifying.

Not that she was going to let them know that, of course. She'd rather die first. Or second.

She sucked in a breath, cleared her suddenly clogged throat, forced her voice to function. Heidi Lindstrom was not going out like a wuss.

"That's some case of hepatitis."

The guy on the right put his hands on his hips, just like Heidi's mother did when she was annoyed about something. Heidi bit down, hard, on her tongue. Nothing about this situation was the least bit funny. So why did she suddenly have this outrageous impulse to laugh out loud?

Shock, she thought again. And saw the eyes above her waver as the tremors started, deep in her stomach. Cold. She was so very cold.

"Well, I declare," the guy said, his tone colored by a Southern accent thick as library paste. "There's no call to be rude, you know. We won the chase, fair and square. It's not our fault that you fell down."

He took his eyes off Heidi long enough to flick them toward the guy standing next to him, as if looking for support. "Is it, Webster?" he went on.

"No, Percy," yellow-eye on the left answered at once.

The yes-man, Heidi thought.

"It definitely is not," he continued, seriously. "Not our fault at all."

Heidi gave up the fight, released a snort of laughter through her nose. They sounded like something out of an almost-forgotten Saturday morning cartoon.

"What's the matter with her, Percy?" Webster asked anxiously, leaning over to get a better look himself, now.

Percy shook his head. "I do not know, Webster," he responded. "I simply do not know. It is a puzzle, to be sure."

"You don't think she has something contagious, do you?" Webster asked, his tone genuinely alarmed. He straightened up abruptly, as if this might get him out of the range of germs.

"Webster," Percy said.

"What?"

"Try not to be any more stupid than you already are." Webster's bottom lip poked out. "You're not supposed to talk to me like that," he pouted. "Mama doesn't like it. She told you not to."

Heidi wanted to laugh again, but discovered she couldn't do it. Her ability to command her body seemed to be gone. All she could do was stare upward at the two guys above her, their white shirts blocking out the dark night sky.

Now that she had nothing else to do but look them over, Heidi could see that yellow-eye on the left, the one called Webster, wore a navy blue tie. Percy's tie was a dark maroon. Other than that, they seemed identical. Tough Heidi Lindstrom been brought down by twin cartoon preppies from Hell.

Talk about embarrassing.

Percy leaned closer, as if he wanted to confide something to Heidi. "You were the best so far," he told her. "You lasted at least ten blocks longer than I thought you would. That's twice as long as the last one, isn't it, Webster?"

Being reminded about how good the chase had been seemed to take Webster right out of his snit.

"That's right, Percy," he seconded.

Heidi began to feel like she was floating. She wasn't even cold anymore. She couldn't remember why she'd been so afraid. These guys weren't going to hurt her. They'd chased her halfway across town so they could bore her to death.

It didn't even bother her when Percy dropped to one knee beside her. He reached for her head, turning it from side to side.

"She looks absolutely perfect," he commented. "So, so..."

Momentarily, Percy seemed at a loss for words. Fortunately for him, Webster chose that moment to have a light bulb above the head experience.

"So...tacky," he filled in obligingly.

"Tacky!" Percy echoed, delighted. "Tacky, yes. I think that's it."

"Mother will be so pleased," Webster put in. "This is exactly the kind of girl she's always warned us about."

Oh, give me a break, Heidi thought. Like the two of you have won so many beauty contests.

As if from a great distance, she heard the sound of the bus, pulling up to the Sycamore Street stop, the hiss and slap of the doors folding open. A moment later she heard them close again, and the bus rumbled off.

She hadn't made it. Wasn't going to make it. Heidi's numbness vanished as fear and pain came roaring back. She was down. But she wasn't out. Not yet. There was still something she had to do. Something important. Heidi swallowed, got her mouth to open.

"Oh, look!" Webster practically squealed in delight. "She wants to say something."

He knelt down too, until his face was level with Percy's. Heidi looked up into two pairs of gleaming yellow eyes, their expressions watchful, expectant.

What are you? she wondered.

Not that it mattered. No matter what they were, there was really only one thing she wanted to tell them.

It was true that, to do it, she'd have to use a word her mother had proclaimed she never wanted to hear in her house. A word that good girls never used. Though Heidi'd always figured it couldn't really be all that bad, because the word she had in mind almost always had a friend.

A little word, like "off" or "you."

She pulled in a deep breath. If she was only going to have the strength to say one more thing, she'd better get it right the first time.

"Please," she was appalled to hear herself whisper. That tore it. Now she'd done it. The thing she hated most of all. She'd gone and used the "p" word.

"Please, don't kill me."

Percy gave a high-pitched squeal of laughter. He sounded exactly like a stuck pig.

"Did you hear that, Webster?" he asked, delighted. "You got us all wrong, miss."

Webster nodded. "Dead wrong," he said.

Then he, too, went off into peals of laughter. The two whatever-they-weres leaned on one another, pounding each other on the backs in their unbridled mirth.

Maybe I should make another run for it while they're overcome by their attack of the jollies, Heidi thought. The only problem with that plan being that she'd have to get up first.

"We're not going to kill you, honey," Percy explained when he'd finally recovered. He wiped his streaming eyes with his maroon tie.

"Don't do that," Webster said. "It's disgusting."

"At least, not yet," Percy continued, ignoring his brother. "There's something very important we have to do first."

"Oh, yes, very important," Webster agreed solemnly. "She wants to know what it is, I can just tell. Don't you want to know what it is, sugar?"

Both guys grinned, completely exposing their disgusting teeth. Fangs. Whatever.

"We're going to take you home to Mother," they said in unison.

Percy cocked his head. "Of course, the fact that we can't kill you yet doesn't mean that you'll enjoy the trip."

"Oh, goody. I just love this part," Webster said.

Percy reached down, and grabbed Heidi by her right arm. She screamed again. Pain roared through her, hot and quick as lightning. Then, just like lightning it was over. The world went black.

She awoke to a world of blinding white and discovered she was lying on her stomach. Her cheek was pressed against something cold and smooth and white with her left arm folded under her. The surface looked just like the marble floor Heidi'd seen once on a school field trip to an art museum.

The pain in Heidi's right arm was so great, her whole body vibrated with it. That was the bad news. The good news was that her head was clearer, and that she couldn't see Webster and Percy.

Slowly, carefully, Heidi leveraged herself up onto her left arm. Maybe if she could get to her feet, she could discover where she was and get the hell out of here.

"Oh, good, you're awake, my dear," a voice behind her said.

Heidi started. Her left arm slipped, jarring her right one and making her head crack back down onto the marble floor. She closed her eyes as fresh, hot pain swept through her.

When she opened her eyes again, there was a woman bending over her.

On her head was the biggest-brimmed straw hat Heidi had ever seen. A gauzy pink scarf was tied around the crown, the ends disappearing down over one of the woman's broad shoulders.

The dress she had on was pink, too. Hot pink. With flowers. Heidi couldn't tell what kind they were, but she could tell that they were really, really big. Pinned to the front of the dress was an enormous rhinestone brooch. So enormous Heidi could see herself reflected in the center stone.

This just had to be Big Mama, the woman the twin twerps had brought Heidi home to meet. And those boys had had the nerve to call her tacky.

"I'm so happy you could join us, my dear," Big Mama said.

Well, goody for you, Heidi thought. At least that makes one of us.

Big Mama's voice had the same accent Webster and Percy's did. Like a Gone With the Wind extra. But at least her face looked comparatively normal. Her eyes weren't yellow. And her teeth all seemed to fit inside her mouth when she closed it.

"I hope my boys weren't too hard on you," Big Mama said. "They can be a little impetuous sometimes. Still, boys will be boys, won't they? I'm sure you understand."

What Heidi understood was that Big Mama had definitely flunked Feminism 101. She licked her cracked lips, tried her voice and discovered it worked.

"They broke my arm," she croaked out.

"Did not," a voice contradicted at once, from somewhere over Heidi's right shoulder. Heidi figured it was probably Percy. He almost always spoke up first. Plainly, the twin twerps were there somewhere, skulking in the background.

"She fell down, Mama. We were nowhere near her when it happened, were we, Webster?" the voice went on.

"No, we weren't," Webster seconded his brother. "We caught her fair and square. I promise, Mama."

"Now, now, boys," their mother chided. "You know it's not polite to contradict a guest."

Heidi heard a strange sound coming from behind her. A sound she could have sworn was Percy and Webster shuffling their feet.

"There, there," Big Mama said, her tone soothing. She straightened up. Standing, she looked like a big pink tower. "Mama knows you're her good boys. It doesn't matter how you caught her. What matters is that you brought the food home just the way I asked you to. You know how I worry about what you boys might put in your mouths."

Heidi felt cold sweat break out on her forehead. Food? This definitely did not sound good. At all. In fact, it sounded downright -- Heidi's mind sheared away. She didn't really want to think too much about what that sounded like. If she did, she was afraid that she'd start screaming and never stop.

"Help the girl up, Webster," said Big Mama. "I want to take a nice long look at her. Oh, no, my dear," she went on, as Heidi desperately tried to scoot away. "It's all right. He won't hurt you. Not until I say so. Nothing in this house happens without my permission."

"Gee, thanks," Heidi gasped. "Suddenly, I just feel so much better."

Big Mama threw back her head and gave a laugh that sounded like fingernails being scraped across a chalkboard.

"Such a spirited young thing," she commented. "But spirits can be broken, you know, my dear. It happens every single day. Actually, I've been known to break a few myself."

Without warning, her face twisted, morphing into an even more hideous version of her sons'. Her forehead folded in upon itself until it was nothing but a series of deep grooves. Her eyes turned wolf-yellow.

"I said help her up, Webster. You know how I hate to be kept waiting. It isn't nice to disappoint your Mama."

Heidi felt herself seized and hauled to her feet by a strong grip on her left arm. She swayed, and the grip tightened, keeping her from falling.

"Here she is, Mama."

The second Webster spoke, Big Mama's face relaxed. The skin on her forehead smoothed out. Her eyes resumed their normal, washed-out blue color.

Heidi locked her knees to keep them from knocking together. I know what you are, she thought. You're monsters.

The kind her mother had promised her didn't exist, though Heidi had always been quite sure they did.

Looks like I was right about one thing, Mama.

And because she was, Heidi knew that there was only one way this could end. The way she'd always known it would.

She was going to die.

She hoped it would be quick. And that she was dead before they did that thing that sounded like Heidi was going to be a midnight snack. Out of all the freaks in Sunnydale, she'd had to come across the ones who were close personal friends of Hannibal Lecter.

Heidi stood perfectly still as Big Mama started to circle like a shark, her high heels clicking against the cold white marble.

"Horrible," Mama murmured, as her eyes took in Heidi's jeans and leather. "Absolutely dreadful. You've chosen well, boys. This one is really only fit for one thing." She stepped up close. Webster released Heidi and backed off. Heidi felt her knees begin to buckle.

"Come with me, my dear," Big Mama said, slipping her arm through Heidi's before she could fall. Heidi winced. Big Mama might look like a marshmallow in a pink flowered tent, but she had a grip like a steel trap.

"I want to show you something."

The toes of Heidi's shoes dragged as Big Mama spun her around and pulled her across the room. Heidi was pleased to note she'd left ugly dark skidmarks on the clean white floor.

"This is my boys' heritage," Big Mama announced, as she gestured toward the wall. On it was a series of paintings. Portraits.

That's why this place reminded me of an art museum, Heidi realized. Because it's a portrait gallery.

Each painting was illuminated by two old-fashioned brass lights, one on the top, one on the bottom. They gave the portraits a strange, otherworldly look. As if their eyes really would follow you when you moved around the room. They reminded Heidi of something. What was it?

Stern men in topcoats and glossy black boots stood beside tired-eyed women in long, shawl-draped dresses. Solemn children wore long curls, were dressed in frilly white shirts and lace-up boots so that Heidi couldn't tell the girls from the boys.

"My boys come from a proud heritage, a long line of true ladies and gentlemen," Big Mama went on. "That man over there--" She gestured toward the portrait of a man standing beside a big black horse. " -- was one of the founding fathers of the Commonwealth of Virginia. And here--"

She jockeyed Heidi into position in front of the largest portrait in the entire gallery, a man wearing the gray uniform of a Confederate officer.

"Here is my boys' father," Big Mama said, the pride in her voice actually making it sound warm. "Boys," she cooed. "Go over there and stand beside the portrait of your papa."

Webster and Percy complied, moving to stand on either side of their father's portrait. They looked like puppies, eager to please. Mutant puppies just waiting to eat me. Heidi felt her stomach roll over.

"My husband was the finest man who ever lived," said Big Mama. "And I've raised my boys to be true gentlemen, just like him. When my husband was tragically cut down in the prime of his life, I knew my duty: to protect my babies. To be with them, always."

Heidi felt Big Mama's gaze upon her. Plainly, the other woman expected her to say something. Heidi pulled in a deep breath and considered her options.

Her right arm was broken. Her left arm in Mama's tight grip. All around her, there were monsters. Heidi knew that she was never going to leave this place alive. But was that the same as being helpless? Did it mean she had to go gentle into that good night? Whatever that meant.

She didn't think so. Particularly since she realized what the paintings all around her reminded her of.

"I'll bet these portraits are like the ones in the Haunted House in Disneyland, aren't they?"

Big Mama's face went completely blank, but she was a lady first, last, and always. And a lady never forgot her manners.

"I beg your pardon?"

Heidi grinned. It felt good to go out with a bang, she thought. Even if it was only a small one.

"You know -- they look normal when you first come in, but then they stretch and stretch and you can see they're all disgusting on the bottom. I'll bet these paintings are just like that. Good looking on top, sick underneath."

Heidi cocked her head in the direction of Big Mama's dearly departed spouse. "Especially that one. Your precious boys are like that, too. I knew they were freaks the first moment I saw them."

Big Mama threw back her head and bellowed. Her grip on Heidi's arm tightened so that Heidi saw stars. When her vision cleared again, she knew she was looking into the face of her own death. Straight up into the eyes of the monster.

"You horrible, mannerless, insolent girl," Big Mama hissed through long, sharp teeth as her eyes blazed fierce and yellow. "You are the one who is disgusting. You're only fit to be one thing: Dead meat."

With one vicious yank, she pulled Heidi's head to one side and sank her teeth into the jugular.

Heidi had time for just one thought. This can't be true. Can't be happening. In horror movies, yes. In real life, no.

Then she couldn't think at all as her body began to spasm out of control, twitching and jerking like a live wire. Big Mama roared again, lifting her blood-stained face. Then she spun Heidi around and thrust her toward her sons.

"Take her," Heidi heard Big Mama gasp.

And then Webster and Percy were on her.

One on either side they fastened themselves onto her throat. Heidi didn't move at all now. She couldn't. All she could do was stand stock-still, her mouth working helplessly, her eyes staring straight ahead at the portrait of their father, as Webster and Percy drank their fill.

She stayed standing for one final moment after they were through. After they'd lifted their heads and released her. After they'd stepped back, once more, to stand side by side beneath the portrait of their dear, departed father.

Through her dimming vision, Heidi saw Big Mama move to stand between her sons, put her arms around them. They rested their heads on her ample, pink-flowered bosom. Heidi's life's blood stained their mouths. Above their heads, Heidi swore she saw the portrait smiling down upon them.

"My good boys," Heidi heard Big Mama coo. Heidi's legs buckled, then refused to hold her. "You were so tidy. You didn't spill a drop. You make your Mama so proud of you."

Heidi felt herself falling. She saw the marble floor rush up toward her. Her head cracked against it, but by then, it didn't matter. Because by then, it was all over.

By the time her head split open on the cold, white stone, Heidi Lindstrom felt nothing. Saw nothing. Heard nothing.

Was nothing.

And so she never heard the only epitaph that she would ever receive.

"Get that disgusting piece of trash out of here," said Big Mama.