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"Surely, at the very least you would expect it to be blood-flavoured."
Marilyn glanced over her shoulder to look at Grandpa. He was holding a box of cereal, as if trying to win a staring contest with Count Chocula. When he noticed Marilyn looking at him, he tossed the box into their cart and sighed.
"Tell me again, what in the name of Satan and all his demons are we doing here?"
Marilyn picked up the box and returned it to the shelf. "I told you, Grandpa. We still need to pick up some things for Eddie's birthday party."
"Which brings us back to my question. Why are we here? Back in my day, when a boy turned twelve we blindfolded him and lead him to the middle of the forest. Then we left him there with nothing but a sharp stick. It was up to him to find his way back to his clan. And then if he came back still a man, the other boys would eat him. Now that's what I'd call a surprise party."
She gave him a sideways look and pushed the cart towards the drinks aisle, half hoping that he wouldn't follow.
"Eddie's been having trouble making friends because of that incident during the camping trip." She paused, then added, "And the other incident in PE class, and the episode on the field trip to the zoo." She shook her head. "I just want to give him the chance to meet some children his own age without..."
"Trying to eat them?"
Marilyn crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing.
"He doesn't want to eat his friends, Grandpa. Sometimes he just can't help himself, especially during full moon."
"Which is exactly my point. Eddie's not human, and he never will be. The sooner he accepts the fact, the better. Besides, Eddie already has plenty of people that he can spend time with."
Marilyn rolled her eyes. "They're not people, Grandpa; they're a pack of wolves you summoned from the mountains."
"Ah, but what sweet music they make. Anyway, I dare you to find a more loyal group of friends."
Marilyn was about to argue back when a woman suddenly pushed her cart between them, not even bothering to stop and apologise when she accidentally shoved Grandpa as she passed him.
Marilyn felt the hair on back of her neck rise as Grandpa's face began to shift, the shadows deepening and his features lengthening as he leaned towards the woman, his teeth only inches away from her arm.
The woman must have sensed the same primal fear that was settling over Marilyn , because she suddenly turned around and gave them a blank stare. Grandpa stepped back — his features completely human again — and sighed.
"It's a disease," he said tiredly.
The woman continued to stare at them for a few more seconds, before finally walked away without a word.
Grandpa turned to Marilyn. "You see, Marilyn! This is what happens when I'm not allowed to feed. People start to take notice. You know it's much better to act like a monster than to look like one."
"No, it's not, Grandpa," she snapped. There was a tiniest flicker in his expression, the closest that he ever got to flinching, she knew. This was the terra incognita between them, an area that they only ever stumbled into during arguments.
Because he might be a monster, but it was she who was the monstrosity.
Before he could say anything, she pushed the cart past him, and headed towards the the other aisle. Once there, she picked up a family-pack of Coke cans. As she lifted them into the cart, she felt them lighten in her hands as the tendrils of Grandpa's shadow helped handle the weight. It was his way of apologising to her — the actual words, if he ever actually tried to say them, would probably burn his lips like holy water seasoned with garlic.
"Eddie loves you, Grandpa," she said as she turned to face him. "And you love him." He started to object, but she silenced him with a simple gesture of her hand.
"If you keep pushing him to become a monster he doesn't want to be, you'll only drive him further away from you. But if you let him be a human, in time he'll also learn to appreciate the other part of his heritage too. He'll be the monster that he wants to be, and he'll be looking up to you when he does it."
For a while, Grandpa said nothing. There was a look in his eyes that she couldn't recognise; something almost like hunger, but not quite. A yearning of some kind, if she had to put it to words.
Finally he rolled his eyes, and said, "I really should have just let your mother eat you when you were born. It would have made my life so much easier"
They made their way through the aisles, picking up the rest of the things on Marilyn’s list before finally reaching the checkout. As they took their place at the end of a very long line, she could hear Grandpa growling next to her.
"I am the apex predator; my rightful spot is atop the food chain!" He hissed at her. "I was not meant to stand in lines!" He raised his hand and was about to snap his fingers, but Marilyn grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand down.
"No, Grandpa. You can't just go around hypnotising people."
He shook his hand from her grasp. "I'm not hypnotising anyone, I'm bending them to my will."
He gave a small wave of his hand and the people in front of them turned around, their eyes staring vacantly back at them.
Marilyn frowned. "Wait, you can't really have made all these people into your blood slaves?"
One by one, the people abandoned their place in the line, and disappeared down various aisles, allowing Grandpa and Marilyn to move forwards. Grandpa shrugged." There was a bake sale at the community center last weekend to benefit the homeless. As it turns out, my devil's food cakes were quite the success. The Society made well over two hundred dollars from them."
Marilyn crossed her arms, and glared at him. He ignored her.
"Now, Marilyn, you're always saying how we should try make more of an effort to become a part of the community. And I so I did. Besides, we could certainly do with a great deal more homeless around here. You can kill quite many of them before anyone starts noticing, and they’re usually very well marinated."
Marilyn rolled her eyes, and then slipped a hand into her purse. She dug a small slip of paper and gave it to Grandpa.
"Here, if you don't want to wait in the line, you can go and pick up the pies from the shop while I pay for these."
Grandpa glared at her, but snatched the paper from her hand and stalked past the last few straggling shoppers standing in the line in front of them.
As he was about to step through the automatic doors and out of the supermarket, Marilyn called after him.
"And no eating the baker! He's also doing a pie for Lily's knitting circle next week and she'll be very annoyed if she has to find another pie maker at such short notice!"
Just a few blocks away, The Pie Maker had been having quite an ordinary day. He had been kicking around the idea of a new recipe he wanted to attempt, something with raspberry and blood orange, perhaps.
He started to think about how life really was very much like a pie — round, and full of good things, but so easy to mess up if you didn't watch what you were doing — when there was a chime at the door to announce a new customer.
He brushed the flour off his hands and headed towards the front of the shop, blissfully unaware that his day was about to become quite extraordinary...