Chapter 68: Meg, the Forgotten One
When Chris and the others finally located Lois, she was sitting on the curb in front of a ransacked villa, looking absolutely dejected and pathetic.
Lois's sadness wasn't because she'd just slaughtered dozens of people throughout the town—the place had been full of body-snatching scumbags who traded in stolen human bodies, so there was no way Lois would feel genuine remorse about killing them all.
Her apparent sorrow stemmed from the realization that her family's vacation had been completely ruined—and it was partly her fault.
She'd been looking forward to a perfect, relaxing weekend getaway, but things had ended up like this. The disappointment was crushing.
However, both Chris and Stewie could immediately tell that Lois's current dejected demeanor was entirely an act—a performance designed to manipulate the situation.
She was afraid her family would blame her for going on a murder spree, so she was pretending to be remorseful while waiting here for them to find her, hoping to implicitly gloss over her completely unhinged rampage through town.
But Chris and Stewie tacitly agreed not to expose her little charade.
After all, the current situation was entirely due to a catastrophic miscommunication between the two of them in the first place.
So the group—two sons, one dog, and one traumatized father—left Peter to comfort Lois and reassure her that everything was fine until she felt emotionally refreshed. Then the family piled back into the van and returned to Quahog that very night.
The impression this town had left was simply too terrible. Lois didn't want to stay there for another goddamn minute.
It was only about thirty minutes after the car pulled onto the highway that Chris belatedly realized someone was missing from the vehicle.
Wait... where the hell is Meg?
"What the fuck? What exactly happened here?!"
Meg rushed back from the far side of the lake, finally arriving at the barbecue lawn a full hour after Chris and the others had departed. What she found was an absolutely shocking scene of carnage.
Bodies were scattered everywhere. Blood had soaked into the grass. Some of the corpses looked like they'd been literally torn apart by someone's bare hands.
Returning to the house Peter had booked for the weekend, Meg found it completely deserted. The family van that had been parked in the driveway was long gone—Peter had already driven it away to search for Lois.
A bewildered and increasingly panicked Meg sat dejectedly on the front steps, trying desperately to piece together what had happened from the horrific battlefield evidence scattered across the property.
Did Mom do this? Meg wondered with growing dread. Did someone attack them? Are they okay?
Just as Meg was about to go inside and try using the landline to contact Peter or call for help, flashing red and blue lights accompanied by multiple sirens approached rapidly.
Thanks to Stewie's apparently high-level connections among America's intelligence community, not long after he'd sent an encrypted message to CIA headquarters, they'd dispatched a specialized cleanup team to the nearest field office.
In less than an hour, they'd completely surrounded the town with a perimeter of armed agents.
Then they'd discovered Meg sitting alone at the crime scene, and several fully armed tactical officers—wearing body armor and carrying assault rifles—were visibly shocked by the gruesome state of the nearby lawn. They nervously trained their weapons on Meg.
"Hey... kid! Hands up where we can see them!" one tactical officer shouted.
The officer had hesitated for a moment, genuinely unable to determine Meg's gender from her appearance, so he'd defaulted to a neutral term that wouldn't offend anyone.
The moment Meg saw so many armed federal agents surrounding her position, she immediately stood up and raised both hands high, clearly signaling that she wasn't carrying any weapons or dangerous items.
Seeing Meg's immediate cooperation, a team leader with graying hair nodded approvingly, gesturing for his team to secure and restrain her for questioning.
Just as one officer pulled out zip-tie handcuffs to secure Meg's wrists, a square-jawed, muscular man in a dark suit—who bore an uncanny resemblance to Joe Swanson but had two fully functional legs—suddenly recognized her.
"Wait, hold on. I know this girl," the man said, stepping forward with authority.
Hearing that strangely familiar voice, Meg looked up hopefully and exclaimed with relief, "Uncle Stan! What are you doing all the way out here?"
Meg immediately recognized this man as Stan Smith—the CIA agent who lived a few blocks over from the Griffin house in Quahog. She'd even stayed at his house for an extended period once when her home life had gotten particularly unbearable, which Meg often remembered fondly as one of the better times in her adolescence.
After all, her day-to-day life in the Griffin family wasn't exactly pleasant most of the time.
Hearing Meg's surprised question, Stan gestured for his subordinates to fan out and search the surrounding area for additional evidence, then explained diplomatically, "Someone reported a mass casualty incident at this location, so I brought a response team to investigate and secure the scene."
After briefly explaining his official purpose, Stan then questioned Meg more personally. He knew the Griffin family had been planning a weekend vacation, but he couldn't understand why Meg hadn't left with them when they'd obviously fled the scene.
On the helicopter ride over, Stan had been monitoring satellite footage and confirmed that the Griffin family van had departed approximately ninety minutes earlier—which was when he'd officially authorized entry into the town.
But what he absolutely hadn't expected was to find Meg—the eldest daughter of the Griffin family—left behind here alone, which made Stan more than a little suspicious about what had actually transpired.
"So what about you? Why are you still here alone?" Stan asked with genuine concern.
"Ah, well..." Meg's mouth twitched slightly, unable to provide any coherent explanation.
She desperately wanted to know where everyone else had gone and, more importantly, why the hell they'd left her behind at an active crime scene.
Fortunately, Stan—who was extensively briefed on all sorts of classified intelligence about the Griffin family due to their various supernatural connections—saw Meg's devastated expression and immediately understood the situation.
Considering that Meg had been like a temporary daughter to him during her stay, and genuinely wanting to prevent her from feeling even more humiliated than she already did, Stan decided to offer a way out.
"How about this," Stan said kindly. "I'm heading back to Quahog anyway after we finish processing this scene. You can hitch a ride with me on the helicopter."
Hearing Stan's generous offer, Meg didn't object whatsoever. After all, she was completely broke right now, stranded in the middle of nowhere, and truly had no other viable options for getting home.
At that moment, Stan noticed the significant bloodstain on Meg's chest and immediately asked with concern, "What happened there? Are you injured? Do you need medical attention?"
When Stan pointed it out, Meg suddenly remembered how she'd been stabbed directly through the heart earlier by Jeremy's hunting knife.
Fortunately, Meg understood her own... unique physiology... and knew that such a "minor" injury was essentially nothing at all to her eldritch constitution.
To prevent Stan from noticing her supernatural abnormality and launching some kind of federal investigation, Meg waved her hand dismissively and lied, "Oh, it's totally fine now. Just a scratch when some guy tried to ambush me by the lake. Barely broke the skin, honestly. Nothing serious."
"Well, if you're sure. But remember to speak up immediately if you start feeling dizzy or experiencing any symptoms," Stan said with fatherly concern.
Seeing Meg's characteristically reserved demeanor, Stan nodded and offered a few more words of comfort. Then his subordinates emerged from Dean's house carrying several large boxes filled with disturbing medical equipment.
"Sir, reporting," a young agent said crisply. "The intelligence was accurate. Illegal brain transplantation experiments were definitely being conducted at this location. After running preliminary identity verification, we've confirmed that some retired Special Forces personnel and several wealthy individuals with federal connections were directly involved."
Stan accepted the evidence folders, casually flipped through a few pages documenting the horrific procedures, then nodded grimly. "Send everything back to Langley headquarters and let the Deputy Director decide how to handle the political fallout. This is way above our pay grade."
"Yes, sir!"
After confirming that Stewie hadn't been bullshitting him and had indeed provided accurate intelligence about genuine criminal activity, Stan prepared to wrap up and return to base. He had nothing left to accomplish here and might as well head home and get some sleep before tomorrow's briefing.
"Let's move out, Meg," Stan called over his shoulder. "My helicopter's waiting in the town square. Do you have anything you need to retrieve from the house first?"
Meg was genuinely shocked and disturbed to learn that this seemingly pleasant lakeside town had been secretly engaged in such dark, horrific business for years. Then she heard Stan's question and immediately followed him toward the waiting helicopter.
"No, I'm good to go," Meg said sadly. "My luggage and stuff were probably already loaded into the van when everyone else left."
Without me, she thought bitterly. Like always.
As Meg boarded Stan's Black Hawk helicopter, she was dropped off directly at the Griffin family home about an hour later via a smooth military flight—while Chris and the others were still barely halfway home, stuck in traffic on Interstate 95.
More than an hour earlier, when Chris had suddenly remembered with dawning horror that they'd completely forgotten Meg at the crime scene, Stewie had immediately contacted his CIA connections. Within minutes, he'd learned through the Deputy Director that Stan Smith had already made contact with Meg and was personally escorting her home.
Knowing that Stan would handle Meg's safe return—the man was annoyingly competent and reliable when it came to logistics—Chris and the others stopped worrying about her entirely.
So when Peter finally pulled the family van into their driveway several hours later, exhausted and traumatized, he was surprised to see that Meg was already home. Even more surprisingly, she'd thoughtfully prepared late-night snacks for everyone—sandwiches, chips, and cold drinks laid out on the kitchen table.
Regarding Meg's unexpectedly considerate gesture, both Peter and Lois—feeling genuinely guilty for once—actually took the time to explain that they hadn't deliberately abandoned her. They just hadn't gone back to retrieve her because they'd received confirmation that Stan would bring her home safely via helicopter.
It was technically true, even if the timeline was a bit fuzzy.
Meg's initially devastated mood improved dramatically after hearing Peter's explanation—or rather, his excuse. She actually smiled genuinely for the first time that evening.
Then, feeling more secure in her family's dubious affection, Meg recounted her entire experience of being lured to the lake, fighting back against Jeremy's murder attempt, and ultimately killing him in self-defense before making the long trek back.
After finishing her story, Meg excused herself and headed upstairs to her room to rest.
What had happened today was still far too emotionally and psychologically impactful for an ordinary teenage girl to process easily.
Even an ordinary teenage girl who happened to be a low-dimensional projection of an eldritch cosmic horror.
As Meg closed her bedroom door, Chris and Stewie exchanged knowing glances across the kitchen table.
Neither of them mentioned the obvious truth: they'd all completely forgotten about Meg until it was far too late to turn around.
Some things were better left unsaid in the Griffin household.
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