The inside of the car smells new. Which isn't that surprising, seeing as it [is] new, but it still isn't what it should smell like.

"Taylor, I know this is all a great change, but I'm sure it will be for the better. You'll see, you'll be making new frie—"

Dad cuts off his meaningless reassurances when he's about to say the forbidden word. That's for the best. I mean, it kind of smelled like the car should: pure bullshit.

I swallow a sigh as I watch the scenery go by from the window. At first blush, Lakewood couldn't be more different from Brockton Bay: white picket fences that don't look like they needed to be painted a decade ago, not a beggar in sight, and a startling lack of white supremacy graffiti. Instead, lush nature seems to encroach on civilization from every corner, and it's impossible to go half a block without some kind of tree, bush or grass patch ambushing you with unexpected greenery.

I already hate it.

At least my power will get some actual mileage. Keeping me from being eaten alive by an army of mosquitoes is looking better and better by the second.

After another stretch of uncomfortable silence that I should have already gotten used to but that still manages to make my skin crawl since I woke up in my hospital room to the announcement of a surprise relocation, dad stops the car at the entrance of what will be, from today on, my new high school. Joy.

The letters over the entrance proudly proclaim the overly patriotic name of 'George Washington High School.' I never thought something could make me miss Winslow so quickly, yet here I am, discovering new things about myself already.

"Taylor, I…" He looks at me as I grab my backpack and sighs. "I need to get to work; call me if there's any trouble. Love you."

There's a silence. Another one.

"Love you too, Dad," I manage to bite out, and I get out of the car to face my new schoolmates, who hopefully won't be a band of psychopaths intent on traumatizing me so hard it actually gives me superpowers.

I mean, the first ones I got weren't worth the bother, to be honest.

My hopes seem to be dashed soon enough, as a boy who makes me look physically fit starts walking by my side with a creepy grin and starts talking.

"So! A mysterious transfer student arrives in the middle of the school term! I wonder what dark secrets she hides under her surly demeanor?"

Great. The Greg Veder School of Casual Conversation has followed me. Just another reason not to feel homesick.

A girl who looks like Hot Topic raided a military surplus smacks the Walmart greeter in training over the head before making her addition to what is starting to feel like a rehearsed sketch. That, or they are far too used to each other.

"Ease up, spaz. What if she actually has a dark secret? Not the kind of thing you want to share on a first meeting." The girl looks at me with a scowl transitioning to an apologetic smile on behalf of what I assume to be her socially challenged friend. I already like her better than him. The fact that she's unlikely to give me breast envy helps.

"Of course, Audrey, dark secrets are a third date affair at best. My bad." He keeps the creepy smile going, so I guess the smack didn't hurt him that much. Points deducted, Sophia the Second.

All right, I may be being a [tad] overly negative. Time to ease up before I self-fulfill myself into social oblivion.

"Right. No actual harm done—unless your ladyfriend hits harder than it looks."

He giggles at that, which I guess counts as a successful social interaction and is hopefully not the prelude to the whole school mumbling about how bad I am at making a first impression. It will be much more annoying with the bugs overhearing.

The fact I don't understand words through them ([yet]) doesn't mean it will be any less annoying having to guess.

"Heh, you're all right in my book, Broody. My name's Noah, and the ladyfriend who [definitely] hits harder than it looks is called Audrey when not dominating the wrestling scene as her masked alter ego."

"I [don't] do wrestling, but I [do] hit harder than it looks. Smaller fists, smaller area, greater pressure. And this comedian here? Don't pay him any mind. Nobody does."

"Ouch, you wound me, bestie. And to think I was about to lend you that Black Christmas collector box…"

"He's actually a nice kid, and you shouldn't judge him by the past few minutes. He's just really bad at making conversation with pretty girls."

"I don't even know whether that counts as an improvement…" The apparently overcompensating boy mutters.

Right. Me. Pretty.

Is this bullying? It feels like bullying.

"Right. Good thing that there are none of those around." Audrey arches an eyebrow. The movement looks practiced. "Name's Taylor, and I am, as has already been established, the new kid."

"With a dark secret?" Noah asks with that almost perpetual smile.

'I don't know, does being able to have the frankly indecent amount of insects in the area eat you alive from the inside out count?' I manage not to blurt out.

"How forward of you, Noah. On our first meeting," I reply instead, with a great deal of physical effort not to show him any teeth.

And now his smile has widened, appearing disturbingly sincere. Is this what Greg would have looked like if I stopped shooting him down?

Thank God I didn't, then.

"So, that's a yes. Nice to know, Broody; we will get it out of you sooner or later."

"He means he wants to be friends and to get to know each other," Audrey translates.

"Then why isn't he saying so?"

"Subtext is important. Stating things outright deprives interactions of a second layer of meaning that enriches the experience, allowing for the unsaid to carry the nuances that actually define the human condition. Hemingway's iceberg theory, basically." Noah… clarifies?

"He does that, sometimes," Audrey sighs. "If you aren't into film analysis and literature, you are going to be giving him a lot of empty stares."

"I… My mother was a professor of literature."

They both shut up, which I am starting to think is a noteworthy event when it comes to Noah, and exchange a concerned look before Audrey nods.

"Then I guess you will be able to follow along. Which you should have kept to yourself, because now he won't shut his mouth."

"Oh, how your words wound me, Bicurious."

"Not in front of the new girl, Virgin."

"… Are you sure you two are friends?"

"The best!" Noah proudly proclaims.

"More like an annoying sibling, at this point," Audrey corrects.

I look at them both. The gawky teen who looks like his body needs to fill up before it catches up with his height, his brown hair and blue eyes almost shining with his overabundance of bouncy energy, and the petite girl with broad shoulders, black, short hair, and blue eyes who seems to have assimilated her leather jacket as an extension of her innermost self.

"You two are weird," I declare after my thoughtful analysis.

"Of course," Audrey nods.

"Normal is for boring people," Noah agrees.

I groan. First day at school, and I'm already hanging out with the nerdy outcasts.

Well, as long as I don't end up hospitalized, I'll count it as an improvement.

Marginally.

***

So. Normalcy.

It is weird.

Nobody is pushing me when I walk down the halls, no one has thrown my books to the floor, or shot a spitball into my hair, or even tried to destroy my textbooks before they lose that new book smell of ink and something else (and I love that smell, it's only beaten by that of old books, with yellowing pages whose corners are no longer sharp and—never mind). I haven't even heard any rumors, beyond a couple of guys wondering how come I'm being escorted by the unlikely duo of Audrey and Noah to our shared classes.

There's also a dearth of gang tags, overt drug trade, and low-key prostitution, which I am kind of thankful for, now that my bugs wouldn't let me ignore what goes on in the school's toilets. Besides the usual level of grossness, of course, which is still there, but at least I don't have to put up with the [moral] kind of grossness.

As I said, weird as fuck. What do these people do for fun? Talk about movies?

The only thing that kind of makes my weirdness radar blip is Mr. Branson's class, which somehow devolves into a very spirited and involved debate about the merits of the horror genre in movies. That is, it apparently isn't zero. Who knew.

"No, you see, if you take Earth Aleph's eighties slasher boom as a reference, you can see where cape culture clearly impacted our expectations. There, the giallo genre quickly devolved into supernatural horror when it was adopted in the United States, but here? Where we have the supernatural shoved into our faces in the daily news? No, here giallo stuck to its roots: a narration filtered through madness, crime that always flirts with the oneiric, and violence that only departs from realism because of its hyperbole. Our catharsis involves fleeing from something that they delight in, but it is catharsis, nonetheless," Noah finishes his monologue in a way that legitimately makes me wonder why the school even bothers hiring a professor of literature whose job seems to be to sit down and take notes while his student gives an impromptu lecture.

"Yeah, right, except that we [also] have horror films with supernatural or even cape elements," Audrey says, with a tone that makes it clear this argument has been thoroughly rehashed.

"But not to the same degree. Here it's generally considered a bad move to have made Jason the main antagonist after the first Friday the 13th, while there they keep releasing films and a lot of people don't even realize he only appeared as a dreamlike sequence in the first movie. That is how entrenched the supernatural is in their conception of horror."

"I thought this class was about literature?" I can't help but ask before I catch myself. Now it's when the stares start, when people start muttering about the new girl who doesn't know when to shut up. Here's where the laughing…

Noah is laughing.

No, actually, he's… chuckling? Rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment?

"Sorry, sorry, Broody, I can kinda get carried away, sometimes."

"Yeah, [some] times," Audrey mutters with far less venom I would expect from her words.

"I, uh, never mind. Name's Taylor, by the way. Not broody."

"I am afraid, Miss Hebert, that getting rid of one of Mr. Noah's creative monikers will be an uphill battle, only comparable to getting rid of him in the first place. Now, as you have so kindly reminded us what the class is supposed to be about, I should go back to telling you that the codification of contemporary horror as a literary genre is sometimes linked to Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' and its reflection of the growing concern with crime under the rise of modern cities, which also shows how the mystery and detective genres—which the tale gave birth to—are linked to it. Of course, the actual roots of the genre are far older, and mythology itself is a great source of material. Lycaon's myth, for instance, would surely delight our overly enthusiastic friend…" Branson's voice keeps droning on in the dull notes of a far too practiced speech as I feel the rush of blood to my ears subside and fake paying attention.

Noah shoots me a rueful smile, and Audrey fondly scoffs at him.

Normalcy.

It may not be so bad.

***

I take it back. I take it all back.

Noah and Audrey seem to have adopted me as their pet project, because I have been unable to escape to have lunch in restful privacy. Instead, I am now eating what the local cafeteria passes for food (which seems to be [actual] food, and isn't that a shocker) in the yard. I am sitting under Florida's sun, during a month where civilized people wear coats, and I am debating whether to get down to my undershirt, because I am actually sweating. This is awful. Normalcy is awful.

"So, not used to the climate yet?" Audrey shoots me while smugly displaying her ability to keep wearing a black leather jacket under the merciless assault of Legend's assholish ancestor.

"Ugh," I reply. Eloquently.

"Give it some time," Noah tells me with his perennial smile, while his flannel shirt hangs open, yet remains on his frame. Bullshit. That is a Shaker effect, these people can't fool me. "I'm guessing you are from up north? New York, maybe?"

"Brockton Bay, actually."

And that kills the conversation.

"So… As bad as the news claim?" Audrey asks with a mix of careless bluntness and stepping on eggshells.

"What? The cape stuff? Well, we have the literal Nazis who kill minorities as a rite of passage, the drug addicts who ride invisible tanks, and the rage dragon who sets fire to the city when he runs out of underage damsels to kidnap and whore out. Other than that? Pretty normal stuff. Picturesque, even."

Noah looks at me intensely, and I wonder whether I've just triggered another Greg Veder situation. I hope not. Audrey looks like she can throw a mean punch.

"Take me!" he shouts loudly enough to draw a few stares from the bystanders. Who promptly realize it is Noah and go back to minding their own business. That seems like a very useful survival strategy for someone who wouldn't die from embarrassment while trying to apply it.

"Not on the first date, Virgin."

"Wha—not like [that!] I mean, can you imagine? Here we are, talking about horror movies all day, and Broody here just got out of one! She's a real-life Final Girl!"

"Well, at least someone noticed I'm a girl…" I mutter low enough not to be heard. Or I think so, because Audrey is looking at me weirdly.

"Virgin, stop trying to fit real-life people into fictional categories. We have already talked about how weird that makes you look. Also, it may make her [more] uncomfortable."

"More? You mean I—oh. Sorry, Broody, I'm used to talking with Bicurious here, and she doesn't mind me too much."

"Why—" why are you like this? No. No one would ever take that question as less than an insult. Redirect. "Why do you call each other like that?"

"What?" Noah looks legitimately confused, before he looks at Audrey and blushes. And looks down. Oh. He [can] feel mortification. Good to know. "Uh. No reason. Kinda our thing."

And Audrey sighs in a way that suggests she may as well be spitting on the ground.

"What the spaz here is suddenly too shy to tell you is that not that long ago a video started circulating through the school of me making out with another girl. I was angry enough I wanted to smash someone's teeth in, but he turned it into our in-joke." She sighs once again. "He's… weird like that."

"I thought normal was for boring people?"

"Do we look bored to you, Broody?" Audrey shoots me a grin, which doesn't take away the sting from her adopting Noah's nickname for me. Great. That's precious, coming from the goth who couldn't commit and eloped with the biker gang aesthetic.

"Hey! I see you are already fitting in?" A girl who looks like she just came out of the kind of magazine Emma [wanted] to work for waves as she stands over our little trio. She… she looks like she's trying to be friendly but doesn't know quite how.

Audrey sighs, once again looking like spitting into the ground would be a preferable alternative.

"Right. Taylor, this is Emma Duval. Emma, Taylor Hebert. If you hear Noah call somebody 'Broody,' that's her, for reasons that will appear obvious in about thirty seconds."

 Emma.

She's called Emma.

Right, because [of course] the girl who looks like a model and obviously has a hostile story with the people who are being friendly to me would be called Emma. Sure, why not. What's another diabolus ex machina between friends?

"Charmed, I'm sure," I manage to bite out.

Emma the Second looks at me with some apprehension. I am sure I don't know why.

"Uh, is everything all right?"

I sigh. I guess spitting on the floor has [some] appeal.

"Sorry, nothing to do with you. I just have some… [history] with an Emma, and this brought back some unpleasant memories."

"Oh. I didn't think it was such an uncommon name?"

"Never heard about the 'one Steve limit?'"

"Oh God, not you too…" Audrey groans as Noah shoots me a gleeful smile. Emma smiles nervously, which I guess counts as a show of goodwill. So, completely unlike Emma. The other Emma.

This is going to be annoying me for months, I can already tell.

"Anyway… There's a party tonight, and I thought it would be a good chance for you to get to know people? And Audrey and Noah are of course invited," she says, her smile turning hopeful as she looks at Audrey… Is this the other girl from the video? Am I getting dragged into a lover's spat?

"Sure! We'll be there! I mean, if you tell us where it is. That information is kind of a prerequisite to my fulfilling the terms of this promise." Noah. Noah, why? Why are you like this?

Emma, rather than shoot him the scornful glare he would have earned at any other high school worth its trauma, smiles warmly at him and chuckles. Does this girl know she can do things other than smile? Add some variety, please.

"It's at Brooke's house. Somebody will bring along booze, but you don't have to drink—and don't let anyone there pressure you." She shoots a look to the side when she says that, and I can see she's referring to a group of people who seems to include two proverbial jocks and a blonde with an expensive tan. Oh. The 'in' crowd. Joy.

I am sure we all will get along and I won't leave the party traumatized by a Carrie-like incident. Especially after that warning about the alcohol.

And now that my father is working for law enforcement, this is an even better situation that cannot go wrong at all.

***

Emma hangs around a bit more after that, but Audrey remains fairly monosyllabic until she finally leaves, shoulders slumped. Which is a bit weird, given their relative positions in the social hierarchy. One would guess Audrey would be the one that would be chasing after Emma (ugh, I need some kind of brain bleach if I am going to keep thinking that name) and not the other way around.

My curiosity must show, because as soon as Emma (gag) rejoins her group, Audrey looks at me.

"We used to be friends, you know?" She starts.

"And now you aren't?"

"She got pretty. Started hanging out with the popular crowd. Left me behind."

"Oh." Is this the time to say 'you are pretty too?' Would that be taken as reassurance or flirting? Wait, how would I feel if someone told me that?

…

Yeah, not touching that with a ten-foot pole.

"Come on, Bicurious, you know you are gorgeous too. Plenty of guys are into women who can break them." Noah, at the risk of repeating myself, [why?]

"And plenty of women are into twinks, Virgin. Don't give up hope yet." Audrey, [why?!]

"[Anyway]," I cut off before things get even farther from the limits of my tolerance, "she seems to want to make up with you. Wouldn't you want to try?"

"Not when it is out of guilt, no."

"Guilt?"

Audrey shuts up, and Noah looks at her apologetically before explaining.

"The ones who filmed Audrey and her… friend were Emma's crowd. They posted the video, and it went viral."

"Oh." That… All right, it isn't on the level of ending up catatonic and full of antibiotics, but it doesn't sound nice.

"That's not… the bad part." Of course it isn't. Not with the way Audrey is staring at the ground. "The thing is that the other girl—"

"Rachel," Audrey interjects.

"Rachel," Noah nods. "Rachel took it really bad. And no one has since her since… two weeks ago."

Shit.

"I… I am sorry, I didn't know—"

"Obviously, Broody. You just got here. Perfect alibi," Audrey says with a dark humor I don't know if I can get used to.

Thankfully, I am absolved of the need to answer to her joke by the screams.

"Wha—" Noah starts to say, but I'm already running.

The commotion is coming from behind the kitchen, where a dumpster is open and a woman with a hairnet and an apron is recoiling in horror. I get there in seconds, and all the while I use my bugs to mark anyone in the near vicinity, but nobody is acting in a way I can tell is suspicious.

Which doesn't mean shit, because I am not a detective, no matter how much of a better class about Dupin's first case I could have given than the jumbled mess Mr. Branson taught us this morning.

So I can safely say I don't know what I'm doing when I reach the dumpster and lean over the lid to see the interior, only to see…

A beautiful girl.

Slender, nymph-like, her long blond hair draped around her like a golden halo, her pale skin having a blue tint that almost looks like moonlight and sunlight are meeting in her, hoarfrost providing the stars that tie up the display. And she's lying, almost artfully, over a spread of photographs.

Some of them are in her. Sticking out of her body like thorns from a rose, each part of her body sprouting one, all except her face, which shows a restful expression. Peaceful.

And there's no blood.

None of my insects have been attracted to her, and when I have a couple approach, they quickly drop dead due to the cold.

A frozen, bloodless corpse arranged like a work of art, surrounded by pictures of herself with… Men. A lot of men, from what I can see.

I guess the motive is clear. One of them, at least.

Audrey and Noah reach my side before I have been able to react in any way whatsoever.

"Nina…" Audrey mutters.

I shoot her a look, grateful for the chance to tear my eyes away from the display, but she doesn't elaborate. She just stands there, transfixed, eyes wide and breathing shallow.

Noah is the first one to react, looking worriedly between the two of us before dragging us away as other students start coming to see what the commotion is all about.

"She's the one who spread the video. She didn't come to school yesterday. Neither did her ex-boyfriend, Tyler… who's been away for quite a while." Noah tells me as he grabs Audrey's shoulders with a steadying hand.

So. The murder was committed yesterday. Good thing I have a 'perfect alibi.'

Now, to find out who doesn't.

***

I didn't expect the first time Dad visited my new high school it would be because of a murder.

Correction: given my track record, I didn't expect it to be because of a murder unrelated to [me].

But there he is, in his civies, taking notes on a clipboard while a Hispanic man with a PRT uniform gives his veredict.

"Parahuman. The lack of blood indicates she was cut after she was frozen, yet there's no sign of sawing or warping on the edges of the wounds. This was done either by a power or a tinkertech blade. We are claiming jurisdiction."

"Fine," the man I assume to be the sheriff answers despondently, as if upset he didn't get chosen for his friend's team at the playground. "Maggie, it looks like we won't be working together this time."

Maggie is looking over the lid of the dumpster at the frozen girl inside who is finally starting to thaw if the (nauseating) reaction of my bugs is anything to go by.

"Maggie?" The sheriff asks.

"There's something…" She reaches in with some kind of tongs and pulls something from underneath the pile of photographs. A weird mask, like a face made of wax caught mid-melting. And 'Maggie' lets out a gasp before dropping to her knees.

The men start shouting at each other while fussing over her, and dad looks unsure whether he should be taking notes of [that]. I don't think I need to.

So I start walking toward where Noah has Audrey huddled in a thoroughly protective cuddle as I ponder my first day.

New friends? More or less.

New Emma? Check.

Something that tops me getting hospitalized? Yup.

What is likely to be my first supervillain in a rural town that hasn't had recorded cape activity in decades? Sure.

Is this school actually worse than Winslow? … I'll get back to you on that.

======================

Hi there! This story is the first extra I started to write for my Patreons back in 2021 (someday this will sound impressive), and the prompt was the brainchild of Nick Russo, the kind and generous soul who got me hooked on Scream TV.

It's currently 14 chapters long, and I'll be posting two weekly chapters until we're caught up. If you feel impatient and want to see where this is going, though, it's currently up to date in both my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/collection/188757?view=expanded) and QQ (https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/periodical-cicadas-worm-scream-tv-commission.16203/)—I'd prefer you resort to one over the other, but I'd leave which one that is up to you, sagacious reader that you are.

Now, as to the bleaker part of this: Nick is sick. He's been diagnosed with an enlarged aorta, and both the threat to his health and his financial stability are substantial. He has set up a GoFundMe (https://www.gofundme.com/f/wdk5e-heart-patient-needs-help) to try and get some support from kind strangers, and I would appreciate it very much if any of you reading this who can afford to do so would help him out. Really, he's an attentive, supportive, funny man, and I… Well, I just want him to be all right.

If you can help with that? Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.