The first time Misty sees her is also the first time Walter stays the night. Misty makes it very clear to him that she does not need him there, but he insists she shouldn’t be alone right now. And truthfully, she would like company, but not from him. Except he is all the company there is left to have so she accepts it.
When they get ready for bed Misty makes him sleep on top of the covers, pulling a small separate blanket out for him, one that she used to lay down on the bottom of Caligula’s cage. It causes the bird to squawk when he sees it, but a harsh shush from Misty shuts him up. Walter takes the blanket gratefully.
Like a sap, Misty thinks.
She doesn’t know where the resentment for Walter came from, it was all very sudden. But she knows she can’t stand to look at his face anymore. She thinks he’s a freak. She thinks he’s clingy. She thinks he should just leave.
All things people have no doubt thought about her. But none of that matters now. Because Walter is here, and she has rid the world of the woman she wished was here to feel all those nasty things about her.
She sets up pillows between her and Walter that night and when he goes to wish her a good sleep, she pretends she’s already passed out. He is too much of a sucker to call her out for it. Misty is at least glad for that.
When Misty eventually does fall asleep, Natalie is there waiting for her. Just on the other side of consciousness, she is draped in a chain-like blanket that pours over the antlers that sprout from her head.
There they are again, out stranded in the woods. The snow coating the ground, pure white, and cleaner than their hands. Winter has come again, so has their hunger.
Misty stands just across the bonfire, presenting this beast of a beauty with the food they’ve gathered from that hunt. Presenting her with everything she has to offer. Misty is exhilarated; she is ready. All she ever wanted dances around her, illuminated by the flames that crackle just before her, spitting embers out like the shells of sunflower seeds.
This is acceptance, she thinks. This is where she truly earned a seat at the table. And she is so, so ready to lay her life down for it. If Nat asked, she would sacrifice herself next, she would let Nat consume her. She’d take a bullet from her hunters gun any day.
She’d do anything for Nat. Anything to make her feel worshipped, to serve as her acolyte. She’d rip open her own chest and play her ribs like a harp just so Nat could hear all the melodies her bones rattle with when she is near. Just so she could see her devotion to everything that Nat is. To everything she knows they could be.
But what’s great about it all is that Nat doesn’t look at her like she wants Misty dead, she looks at her like she will make sure she gets to live. Like she will make sure they never have to rip her flesh like they ripped the others. It fills Misty’s skin with goosebumps. She is so terribly safe, so sickeningly alive. Eating the corpse of the dead, knowing she will never suffer the same fate. Because their queen was going to protect her.
Misty pulls off the pelt that covers her face and she sees the way Nat’s eyes crinkle up underneath her veil.
A building hum begins to start, like the frost covered trees are screaming a chorus.
She is smiling at me.
That is the last thing she gets to think as Nat starts to lift her cover and Misty is snapped awake.
She’s shot up right, shivering, even though she has sweat through her clothes at the collar. Panting, she grapples at the covers like somehow she could get back there. She shouldn’t have left that soon, she didn’t even get to see her face.
Her panting turns into screeching sobs, shaking Walter awake next to her. He is grappling onto her instantly, trying to shush her crying, comfort her. But he is anchoring her here, she thinks. He is keeping her from the other side, where Natalie waits, dripping in divinity. She tries to push Walter away, but he is persistent, adjusting his grip so he can hold her tighter.
Eventually she succumbs to his comforts, lets herself be swallowed by his arms. It only makes her feel colder, it only makes her feel more alone.
She is sure now, she thinks, that she was killed that day too.
***
The next night, Misty is eager to go to bed, she doesn’t even bother wrestling with Walter to leave. She lets him stay and haunt her house, like the ghost she treats him as. She puts up the pillow wall and sets out Walter’s birdcage blanket and she is underneath the covers as soon as she turns off the light.
She will see her again tonight; she is so sure of it. She can feel a fire burning in her veins, making her shiver. She is going back to her. She knows she will.
She breathes in a rhythm, putting a finger up to her throat, tracking her beating heart. It lulls her into sleep, pulling her eyes down like they weigh tons. She can’t help but smile as she drifts off.
This time she is in Natalie’s room. She is sitting on the motel bed, and she is waiting for her, she can hear Nat laughing behind the bathroom door. It brings a smile to Misty’s face.
The door opens slowly and there she is. Standing before Misty in nothing but fishnets, panties, and a t-shirt. Nat is smiling down at her, the bathroom light casting a halo around her figure. Misty can’t do anything but gape at her.
She is gorgeous, she thinks. Just as gorgeous as she remembers Nat being.
Natalie stalks over to her slowly, bending down until she’s face to face with Misty. She ghosts her lips over the blonde’s before grinning and pulling away, teasing her.
Misty is too shell shocked to move, but she is trying to urge her limbs to do anything. To reach out and grab her, hold her until she agrees to bring her with her to wherever she has gone after life. But she can’t move a muscle.
Nat hooks her fingers under her own t-shirt, lifting it slowly up her stomach. Misty feels her breath catch in her throat. And Nat watches Misty watch her, chewing her lip in anticipation.
She finally removes her shirt fully and flings it to the ground and that’s when Misty sees it. Sitting between her breasts is a long row of stitches.
An autopsy cut.
Her blood runs cold, and she feels bile rising up in her throat. This is still a dead girl.
Misty gets up from the bed, extending her hand out. She takes two fingers and presses them to the stitches on Natalie, who sighs pleasantly as the blonde runs a nail across them.
She lets her fingers rest in the middle of them, feeling them strain and loosen as Natalie breathes. In and out, In and out. Her chest heaving in rhythm with Misty’s heart.
But Nat is breathing too much, she is taking heavier and heavier gulps. Like she is trying to swallow the entire world. Misty reaches up and clamps her hand down over the corpse’s mouth, and she realizes that nothing is leaving or entering Nat’s lungs.
She isn’t breathing.
Of course she isn’t breathing, she’s dead. How could she breathe if she’s dead? How could she breathe if Misty had killed her?
She rips her hand away as she watches Nat’s face turn a sickening grey, her eyes glossing over, losing all sense of direction. Misty looks down at her own hands to find them gloved, reaches up to her face and feels that it’s masked. Then she rips her eyes back to Nat to see the whole world has changed around them.
Nat is now laid out in a bathtub, Shauna looming over her with an electric saw. She’s ready to dismember the body, just like Misty told her too.
She’s holding a bag of Nat’s clothes. She’s going to use it to cover up the murder, she’ll make it look like Nat has just gone on a long trip away from home. No one will suspect anything at all, no one will even care enough to call her in missing.
Misty tries to scream, tell Shauna to stop and get away from her, but she can’t do anything. So, she just watches as Shauna brings the saw down, making the first cut against her, spraying Nat's blood all across the walls.
This is all Misty’s fault.
It is all her fault.
The nightmare fades after that, but Misty doesn’t wake up right away. She spends the rest of the night tossing and turning, horrified but dreamless.