It had come in the night when she was a girl just becoming a woman and it had worn a white mask.

She knew it was a Jiang Shi even though it didn’t hop because it moved stiffly, almost unwillingly, through the dark room. Dead with terror, she watched it approach her bed, pull back the covers from her shivering body. Then it lifted up her nightgown.

She jerked back, groped and found a small bowl of sticky rice on her messy bedside table. Sticky rice: one of the things the movies said would stop a Jiang Shi.

She held it out like a crucifix between them.

The Jiang Shi froze deadly still. Then it lurched around and left in hasty confusion. But not before she smelled the 63-proof baijiu on its heavy breath and knew it for her father.

As Bunt pushed through the white bodies, Sally understood at last why the Jiang Shi were so important to her now.

And so, she cried out with careful incoherence, “Don’t kill me, I don’t know what to do without her, I admit we had no equipment, oh what do I do?” She tried for a voice weak with helpless terror, understanding now how he would love that.

It worked. He stopped chasing the van, pushed his way back and into the store. “Kay, wer done withiss SHIT!!” he raged. He was sweating and disheveled and he walked right up to her saying, “I oughtta kill you, but you won, so I’ll give you a reward but NOT no key, and we won’t say nuthin’ about—”

She whipped up the stake and stabbed it into his thigh, close to his balls. He screamed a girlish scream. She twisted the stake as she pulled it out.

He doubled over and fell to the floor clutching his wound. Sally slammed her foot down on his head, wishing she was wearing boots instead of running shoes. “Give me the key and the code now. Or I will kill you.” She pictured his death, held the stake against his neck.

She understood now, the Jiang Shi had helped her see. Bunt was a petty tyrant, a martinet like her father. But just like her father, Bunt had little bravery and no power outside his tight world.

“I don’t have it,” he whined. She kicked his head.

“Lie! You carry it with you always, it’s your only power.” She nicked his neck with the dripping point of the stake. “Last chance.”

He didn’t have the strength to bluff any further. “It’s in the inner pocket,” he babbled. “The code is 4133259, don’t kill me, I’ll be good, I’ll go straight, I’ll never do nothin’ again, I’m sorry about Mommy and all ‘ose fags.”

Not sure she wanted to know what he meant by “Mommy and all those fags,” she flipped him over with the toe of her shoe and fished the key out of his inner pocket. The “key” was a tiny number pad, about the size of a keychain holder. She held the bloody point against the underside of his trembling jaw. “Anything I have to know about deactivating this?” She jabbed his flesh.

“Naw, naw, nuthin’ to it, key in the number, just, y’know, don’t make a mistake, you only get three tries, then…” He trailed off, then began again with a weasel grin. “This one deactivates all of ‘em, y’know, so maybe after pretty baby gets hers off, you could, y’know, give it back?”

With dread, she realized what he’d meant. “Do I understand that you have other people with these collars on their necks? What, in your basement?” Her stomach turned.

“Naw, naw, just one, just one, there’s just one guy left. The others, y’know, heh heh.” Bunt shrugged helplessly.

Before he got KerriAnne Bunt must have picked up homeless guys and bled them for his Runs. His basement was probably full of corpses. Then the Runs had given him wealth and notoriety enough that KerriAnne offered herself to him, probably in exchange for whatever shit she was on.

And “sorry about Mommy?” Had his own mother had been his first victim? Probably, but she couldn’t take any more.

From a numb place beyond outrage and horror, she simply asked, “And one code unlocks all the collars?” He nodded, his eyes never leaving her.

She pulled out her phone. “I’ll be talking to my sister. If she dies, you die.” She willed her stone hazel eyes to communicate her genuine desire to murder him. It helped that she was, in fact, trying to decide if it was safe to let him live. Hatred raged in his eyes but self-pity made them wet.

To make a call, she had to stop the video recording. She half expected the phone, only two years old but already barely working, to crash but it didn’t. As she touched the picture of a heavily-made-up KerriAnne and listened to the sound of dialing, she reflected that the video might incriminate her as much as Bunt.

“Boss?” KerriAnne’s voice trembled.

“Darling,” Sally answered, no longer remembering when or why they’d started calling each other those names. “Got the key. No problem.”

“Oh God!”

“Deactivating it now. Bunt’s right here and he’s told me exactly how to do it.” Last chance for you if you’re lying, her gaze told the sniveling man. He shook his head desperately.

Then she tapped in the number, hit enter.

“Darling?” she asked, unable to keep her voice from catching. She heard breathing, then crying; that was a good sign, wasn’t it?

“KerriAnne, you answer me, are you okay?!?”