Familiar Faces

By Tinamarie Cox

For the past three months, Maggie had planted herself on the same bench in the northwestern quadrant of Central Park at six a.m. every morning. Placed beside her were always a brown paper bag and a paper coffee cup, both clean and empty. She did not require food and drink in the same manner as humans but needed to keep up appearances and maintain the illusion. Sitting here like this, Maggie appeared to be like any other New Yorker enjoying the cooler hours of the early summer mornings and a deli-bought breakfast.

As the joggers on the Great Hill Track passed by, Maggie studied their skin. She looked each perspiring body up and down carefully, determining collagen levels and the elasticity of their dermal layers. There was a wide range in age, but younger was preferred. She favored flesh in its prime and in good health. The better condition of the hide meant the tissues would last longer. More time for enjoyment and less time spent hunting.

Maggie, the name that had belonged to the skin she was currently in, had given her a long and pleasurable five years. But her stolen flesh had begun to pucker as of late, thinning and loosening, and starting to droop on its harsh frame. It was time for a change in coverings. Maggie’s delicate apricot coating was nearly spent.

New York City was the perfect place to acquire new skins. Becoming someone new and blending in was effortless in the twenty-first century. There were millions of hosts to choose from and all in different colors. The variety drew her, and the ease of attaining a human casing kept her lingering. A hundred years of stalking and acquisition in this city, and she hadn’t felt any exigency to leave it. One person missing out of millions was a drop of water in Earth’s ocean. She drew no suspicions.

Time had only made the process simpler for Maggie.

Naturally, her skills improved as she moved from body to body. She had made mistakes in the beginning. Been too violent with the first few when she should have been more clever. She hadn’t expected such a mess. Hadn’t known there was so much blood and viscera inside a human body.

But she had been so eager to try. So excited to keep going. To test her limits. Go beyond what she had once thought she was capable of.

Practice made perfect. Switching bodies became seamless.

And there were other factors, too, that allowed Maggie an inconspicuous lifestyle. Population growth was major, inevitable with the humans’ devotion to sexual pleasure. Humans seemed challenged when it came to controlling their desires, much less their reproductive abilities. She felt it was the greatest disadvantage of the species. To be so tightly bound to sex and rearing the inevitable offspring.

She couldn’t consider using a human during their infancy or adolescent years. Children were too helpless. Despite the soft suppleness of their skin, being commanded by another adult was unappealing. Maggie was fully grown and had left her nest ages ago.

The way society chose to isolate itself behind its technology also benefited Maggie. Whatever flashed on their handheld screens determined the next fad and the newest trend, which consumed their attention. It seemed humans could not be without their electronic devices, as if they were an extension of themselves. An enthusiastically consumed distraction from the realities of the drudgery of the human world.

Maggie had spent the last several weeks on her perch in Central Park keeping up to date on the latest social interests by watching TikTok videos on her cell phone. Many of the clips were centered around humorous topics, which she hated to admit she found entertaining. And some of the video creators poured their life stories and struggles into the camera for the whole world to see. Maggie liked these videos best. She adopted the histories and backgrounds of the TikTok users for the real-life conversations she participated in.

With the recorded stories committed to memory, she could stir up feelings of pity, compassion, or even lust in her listener. Their emotional responses made her feel more human. Continued the deception. Ultimately, it distracted her conversation partner from asking other, more troublesome questions. Like why the alcohol they were drinking wasn’t making her tipsy.

Maggie toggled between the app and observed the passing joggers. She stealthily snapped pictures of potential skin donors for later deliberation. She had noted their schedules and made her friendly face visible during their routines. She looked up, met their gaze, smiled, and angled her head cordially. Every few minutes, she reached into the paper bag standing upright by her lap and brought an empty fist to her mouth, pretending to eat breakfast and drink coffee.

Some mornings, she’d daydream about the first days in a fresh costume, how silky and soft the flesh was. She liked to run fingers along the new skin, feel how well it hugged the bones. The sensation made the human lungs feel heavy, the heart race, and the mouth water.

No part of her donor went to waste.

Once fitted into a new disguise and acclimated to its nervous system, the previous host served as a first meal. Consciousness didn’t return to the shell. The brain was ruined by her invading connectors and the gray matter disintegrated with the disentanglement. Like pulling a weed out of the ground after it had infiltrated and rooted deep into a garden bed.

The defunct flesh made an exponential shift into the decomposition process after being evacuated. Technically, the carcass had started decaying the moment it was put on. Be it delayed or negligible so long as the body’s systems remained minimally active.

The putrid smell that accompanied a rotting body drew attention. Evidence caused questions and investigation. And even this creature had to eat sometimes. Of all the mammals, the taste of human was second to none. Without a doubt, human surpassed in flavor compared to her littermates.

On other observation days, Maggie thought about the instances when young, hormone-driven bodies ensnared her in conversation with the single goal of engaging in mating rituals. She found these human practices amusing, not sharing the same desire or need for such companionship.

Coupled bodies pounding genital areas, sharing fluids, and flesh becoming hot and sticky from the exertion was overall, unappealing. However, Maggie learned the importance and the rules of these games during her adventures among the humans. Though, she did not gain the same level of satisfaction from sexual acts.

Her top priority was to remain innocuous. She paid no favor to a particular gender. Or lack thereof. She appreciated the modern sense of fluidity between sexes. The notions of male and female and fulfilling sexual needs had changed greatly in the last hundred years she had spent amidst people. She had learned that bodies fit together in multiple ways. And Maggie knew how to please any partner no matter the skin she wore.

She had gotten better at determining if a mate would become too attached and return to her with more serious intentions. Relationships complicated her lifestyle. Partners asked too many questions and wanted to be involved with everything. She could not explain to a human how slowly rotting, sagging flesh walked amongst the population. Being solitary and independent was required.

Maggie preferred to migrate across the boroughs only when necessary, like when she adopted a new disguise. Previous acquaintances noticed the change. Memories and personality were lost when she implanted herself. But after a few hours of investigating the old life, she knew who needed a goodbye to be satisfied. And which places not to haunt. These lessons had been learned the hard way at the beginning.

It wasn’t difficult to find a new apartment when she needed one. Some neighbors were nosier than others. Maggie didn’t have much on hand to pack and move. She kept enough belongings to make an apartment look lived in. And the keepsakes she was genuinely fond of remained in a storage unit.

She learned to save certain items after discovering antique shops. Some humans were willing to pay puzzling sums of money for old things that no longer served anything more than an aesthetic purpose. A lengthy existence inhabiting many lives had allowed her to accumulate a monetary cushion.

As the freshness of Maggie’s skin wore out, she felt like antiquity. Something shabby and spent, and only admired as what it used to be. The lingering memory of something gone and nearly forgotten. A word on the tip of your tongue. She didn’t like to feel as though she was fading.

Each morning, she studied the creases deepening on her hands and around her eyes. She pulled at the lines circling her throat. It took more effort to keep her mouth from frowning. She found her reflection off-putting. It hadn’t surprised Maggie why flirtations and pleasure seekers had decreased over the last several weeks. Her body looked disgusting.

Humans were shallow creatures. Wrinkling and dulling skin combined with thinning and lifeless hair was unattractive and deterred their mating drive. And it was this decrease in attention that brought Maggie a sense of urgency to find replacement tissue. She had grown to enjoy being noticed for her beauty and sexual appeal. But adamantly denied she possessed human vanity. She just wanted to feel good about herself. There wasn’t much else to her drive.

Beautiful skin made Maggie feel powerful.

Maggie was eyeing male flesh for this hunt. The last twenty years had been spent in female coverings. Before that, her costumes were alternated between the sexes. When IT first began acquiring human skins in New York City, it had sought males exclusively. Back in those early days, you had to be male to do what you wanted. No one questioned a man’s late hours or odd habits. A hundred years ago– when IT had still been something crawling and slithering and observing the human species in the shadows– it seemed a woman was more of a thing than a person. And IT had been tired of being a thing.

Before IT was Maggie, there was Ananda, and before her was Shyla. She only remembered Molly because of how short a time her skin had lasted, a mere year. She had judged Molly’s skin all wrong, or rather, it had deceived her. A century of lives and dozens of names had blended together in parts. What IT had originally been called escaped its memory. The point was to experience life, not remember the vehicle.

Christopher passed her bench for a fourth time that morning. Maggie gave her next potential covering a small smile. He had finally taken notice of her earlier in the week, stealing brief glances at her during each of his eight daily laps around the loop. He looked young enough for her predilection, and in satisfactory health.

She loved the way his tanned epidermis stretched over his pronounced cheekbones. How taut it was across his firm abdominal cavity. And how the flesh around his defined biceps glistened with perspiration in the morning sunlight. He was a fine human specimen. She was fairly certain Christopher was the one.

Her hearts synced into a quick rhythm with her sudden excitement. She fidgeted on the bench as she envisioned slipping into new skin. Shedding this expired hull and feeling the brief freedom from a body’s weight. Severing the aged links that bound her to a moribund marionette. She licked her lips as she thought about making a satisfying meal out of this faithful body she was currently in.

Maggie wanted to wear the Christopher costume as soon as possible. She imagined the strength in his well-maintained and robust body. What the ripples in his muscles must feel like when his feet pounded against the asphalt during his run. How easily she would be able to command adoration with his coy smile. The way lovers would worship the powerful way she’d use his hips.

Decision finalized, Maggie hid her phone away in the back pocket of her shorts. She put the unused coffee cup in the empty brown bag and crumpled them together for the trash can. The wait for Christopher to make his next lap was almost too long. She leaned forward on her bench, staring down the jogging path. Eyes only for him as others passed her by.

When Christopher returned to view, Maggie grinned and angled her head at him. She shifted on her perch, impatient for him to meet her gaze. When their eyes locked, Maggie felt her nerve endings pulse and the human heart lurch. This level of anticipation was better than sex. The barbs holding her inside Maggie tingled.

It was time to seize the moment.

She gave him a little wave with a shaky hand. Then, she patted the place on the bench beside her that was vacated by the fake breakfast.

Christopher slowed his pace, his interest engaged, and paused his morning jogging routine through Central Park to speak to a familiar face. He sat beside Maggie, his mouth open and catching his breath, and rested his arm along the top of the bench.

“Finished your breakfast fast today?” He stretched his long legs out in front of him and Maggie traced them with her eyes.

“I have a confession to make,” she began, flapping her eyelashes at him.

“Do tell.”

He leaned in closer and she could smell the salty trails of sweat dripping down his perfect skin and mixing with his pheromones. He was easily hooked. His scent made her mouth water. Made her buzz inside Maggie. He was a fine choice.

“I was too nervous to eat it this morning. I was hoping to meet you more formally today.” Maggie pressed her pink lips into a crooked smile and raised one of her shoulders aiming to convey shyness in her flirtation.

She formulated a new plan. The details arrived like lightning in her head. She’d do things a little differently this time. She’d play all her cards right and take him to bed first. Part of her ached to feel him inside this body before putting him on. She didn’t understand where the urge had come from, but she decided to obey it.

What was the point of living if not for a few indulgences here and there? Experiment once in a while? Evolve the methods? A hundred years of slipping from body to body needed to stay interesting.

She wasn’t becoming more human.

IT could never be human.

“Well,” he held out his hand to her, “I’m Christopher. It’s nice to meet you…?”

“You can call me Maggie,” she answered and accepted his handshake. His skin felt better than she imagined. A wave of delight coursed through her. A wide grin crept across her face.

Christopher was hers for the taking.

Predator and prey were united at last.

Okay, Mr. Drew Hancock, writer of Fred: the TV Show and Fred 3: Camp Fred. I hear you have a new, little horror film – COMPANION. Let’s give it a go.

And I am going to try as hard as possible not to spoil a goddamn thing since its marketing did the complete opposite.

PLOT OF COMPANION (SPOILER-FREE)

Iris (Sophie Thatcher) and boyfriend, Josh (Jack Quaid) travel to upstate New York to have a friends get-away with Josh’s best friends: Eli, (Harvey Guillén), Patrick (Lukas Gage), Kat (Megan Suri) and Kat’s boyfriend, Sergey (Rupert Friend).

However, trying to fit in, Iris starts to discover a terrifying secret within this tight-knit group of friends. A deadly secret…

THOUGHTS ON COMPANION (SPOILER-FREE)

Never would I have thought I would be saying that a writer of ‘Fred: the TV Show’ and ‘Fred 3: Camp Fred’ wrote a damn fine film. But here we are.

Writer/director, Drew Hancock, created a funny, clever and interesting gem of a horror film. COMPANION is a great adventure film in the horror genre, focusing on the ideas of identity, self-preservation, the cogito, ergo sum of life, and women’s rights.

And, trust me, I know that sounds like a lot, but that’s pulled off by the superb writing and the acting – it flows together really well. It’s an incredibly precarious job to balance humor, horror and drama. If you go too hard with humor and it’s cringey. You give too much drama and it’s tonal dissonance. If there’s too much horror…well, that’s okay, actually.

But with heavy hitters with incredible comedic timing like Harvey Guillén and Jack Quaid, the cast only elevates the writing and story. Quaid and Sophie Thatcher have so much chemistry and work so well together that the drama feels authentic and raw. Thatcher is such an engaging actress, working with what could have been a very flat role. But she portrays Iris with such intelligence, wit and vulnerability, it sells the idea of COMPANION that would usually require more suspension of disbelief.

I liked the soundtrack by Hrishikesh Hirway. Both the original soundtrack and the songs chosen work well with the tone and plot. Super fun bop. You can tell that the song selections were picked with intent and care, for example, the Goo Goo Dolls’ song playing in Josh’s apartment.

The effects in COMPANION were terrific by being used sparingly but grotesquely, for example, the scene with the slow, tortuous scene with the candle. Most of it is practical, but there are some key scenes with CGI that are really well done.

BRAINROLL JUICE: THIS HAS VAGUE SPOILERS

I love horror films. Yeah, I know, big surprise. But this type of film highlights why horror is such an important and crucial part of our history and culture. Horror is a lens of a society of the times. Looking back, we can see what creatures scared us. What people were afraid of or should be afraid of.

Horror, by large, is a very social and progressive genre. Monster movies and mad scientist movies of the 1950’s were en vogue due to the rising fears of the atomic bomb and the Cold War. The same is true for the rise in space horror as we had the Space Race and landed on the moon.

Movies of the ’60’s and ’70’s had serial killers, delinquents, social rights, and the pearl-clutching fear of losing our innocence as a nation and losing our good, Christian values.

The 70’s and 80’s saw the fear of the faceless stranger, sexual deviance, as well as our growing concern of the expanding powers of corporations.

And so on and so on (this could be an entire article itself).

However, I find this new twist on an old genre interesting – a woman’s story. From the exploitation revenge flicks of the ’70’s to the girl-power vibe of the 90’s and early 2000’s, AFAB stories are getting more attention. More realistic and substantial attention.

Coralie Fargeat has been exploring this with great success with her most recent film, ‘The Substance‘, but first really dove into this with her fan-favorite, ‘Revenge‘. ‘Freaky‘ and ‘Happy Death Day‘, while comedic, explore girlhood, femininity and social expectations. ‘Don’t Breathe‘ turns the trope on it’s head (in a still gross way). ‘Babadook‘ shows the difficulty with being a mother, and ‘Hereditary‘ is a deep drama on matriarchal generational trauma.

Obviously exploring themes of the AFAB horror experience isn’t a new idea, the exploitation of a woman’s story is starting to feel strained and gross. Currently, women are facing a tremendous push back on their rights. From losing the right to choose in a wild turn of events as Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, to the most recent (at the time of this review) removal of women in the government, a senseless war on diversity and protections in the workplace, and the guttural shout of, “fuck you!” to transwomen and literally putting them in danger of starring in their very own rape-revenge true story.

What does this have to do with horror and COMPANION? Well, pretty much everything. COMPANION is about what it means to be a woman. Her fears are real and reflect the fears of our society currently. Loss of agency. Loss of identity. Loss of her voice and decisions.

But like all good horror, it will stand the test of time. It will be on the right side of history, as they say. With an incel proxy as the villain and a woman learning about herself, it’s clear what Hancock envisioned for COMPANION. It’s a film about empowerment and reflection of our society right now. And unlike the newest Black Christmas, it doesn’t shove a diva cup down your throat.

And all that from a guy who wrote Fred 3.

Last update on 2025-02-04 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

BOTTOMLINE FOR COMPANION

A funny, terrifying and adventurous romp into what it means to be yourself.

(5 / 5)

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes, Eric LaRocca’s June 2021 debut collection, is a dark and disturbing exploration of human connection and the desperation for intimacy. These stories burrow under the skin, blending psychological horror sprinklings of body horror and a disturbing undercurrent of religious obsession.

The Stories.

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes features a novella followed by two short stories.

‘Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.’

Presented as a true crime investigation and told through a series of increasingly disturbing emails and instant messages,Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke charts the twisted relationship between Agnes and Zoe. What begins with the sale of an heirloom apple peeler quickly spirals into obsession, control, and unsettling discussions about life, death, and dominance. Winner of the 2022 Splatterpunk Award for Best Novella.

‘The Enchantment.’

Set in our world, but where the afterlife has been proven to not exist. A couple (Olive and James) welcomes their teenage son Milo home, eager to celebrate his 17^th birthday. Milo, a highly religious person, is in no mood to celebrate. Milo is convinced that science is wrong, God exists, and he is willing to go to great lengths to prove his devotion.

‘You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over.

Gerald Fowler’s garden discovery—a bone—leads him to his mysterious neighbor, Mr. Perlzig. A seemingly simple question about the bone’s origins quickly devolves into a series of escalating bets that Gerald can’t seem to lose, with darkly comedic and increasingly unsettling consequences. What lengths is Mr. Fowler willing to go to to ensure he remains a polite neighbor?

Last update on 2025-02-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Highlights.

The main highlight in this collection was the first story, ‘Things Have Gotten Worse Since We last Spoke’. This story felt like a rollercoaster and it ended with me wanting more. The body horror toward the end was so well written, LaRocca doesn’t resort to drawn-out bloody descriptions or visceral language, the body horror here feels more mature than that. It is slight cramping and nausea and knowing the cause and how it’s all going to end. Also please pay attention to the nuances of who enters and leaves the chats first and how quickly (or slowly) emails are returned. It is in these details that LaRocco shines, you can feel the desperation oozing from the page.

‘You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over’ is Stephen King-esque; for me, that’s a big win! I’m not sure what it is exactly, perhaps it is Mr. Fowler who feels he could walk into Castle Rock, in particular of the Needful Things era, and not be noticed, or maybe it’s the Americana feel of the story itself. There’s just something there that makes me want to pick up anything of King’s and reread it.

Last update on 2025-02-03 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Drawbacks.

Notice how I skipped a story in the ‘Highlights’ section. Let’s talk about ‘The Enchantment’. Look, I didn’t hate it. It just felt disjointed and unfinished. Like LaRocca had a great idea but perhaps had some trouble with the execution. The first scene was great and I was ready to completely enjoy it. The characters are so well developed in this first scene, the parental angst and the teen anger are palpable. But then there is the ‘Six Months Later’ jump and we are thrown onto Temple Island. Despite the parents being there, they are not the same people and I didn’t completely buy the reason for them being there, or being there together. The stranger who appears and the reason behind it feels contrived and enters into deus ex machina territory.

The Final Take.

This collection has much to offer, with the eponymous novella being the strongest of the three in my humble opinion. While ‘The Enchantment’ is less impactful, it does contribute to the book’s exploration of religious ideas and provides a thematic bridge between the other stories. Might someone skip who feels inclined to do so? Yes, I think they could without missing out on too much.

(3.5 / 5)