Chapter 61: Escape from Deadly Town?
The next morning, before dawn, the Griffin family had already begun their preparations.
As Chris stepped out of his room, he heard Peter shouting downstairs with a megaphone: "Hurry up, people! We need to arrive before noon, or we'll miss the complimentary continental breakfast!"
"Ugh! That fat idiot is so loud!"
Chris looked down at the diminutive Stewie, who was wearing pink footie pajamas and hugging his teddy bear Rupert while yawning.
"Go wash your face, or Lois will attack you with a wet washcloth again."
Stewie's expression shifted dramatically—Chris had clearly hit a nerve. He immediately cursed: "Damn that woman! She tries to waterboard me every single morning!"
But despite the complaints, Stewie still consciously changed into his regular clothes and obediently went to wash up.
By the time everyone was ready, it was exactly six o'clock.
Facing the rising sun, Peter drove the family van toward the resort town he'd booked online.
There were no problems along the way, and after a four-hour drive through upstate New York, the Griffin family arrived at a small lakeside town.
"Look at that—Lake Quahog! Just as beautiful as the website promised!" Peter stretched his hand out the driver's window, pointing at the pristine lake ahead and exclaiming enthusiastically.
Then the car turned onto a side road heading into the town proper.
Soon they entered the residential area, with identical single-family homes lining both sides of the tree-lined street.
"Oh, look! Are those people welcoming us?"
Stewie stood up and peered out the window, finding that, as Meg had noticed, there were people standing in front of every single house, all staring intently at the car entering their town.
But after a quick glance, Stewie noticed something deeply unsettling about these residents—their expressions were eerily uniform, not to mention their unnaturally perfect postures.
It was as if these people had all undergone some form of neurological reprogramming or brain surgery.
Upon discovering this abnormality, Stewie's mind instantly generated several hypotheses about which procedures would produce such results.
But just as he began mentally cataloging possibilities, Stewie noticed Chris's flickering eyes scanning the crowd with recognition, and he stopped wasting mental energy.
"How disappointing. With you here, I have a feeling this vacation won't be exciting at all!"
Chris looked down at Stewie, who'd sat back down, and said with a knowing smile: "What did you figure out? My instincts are screaming that this town isn't what it seems!"
"Tch, so what? Just a bunch of lobotomized idiots who've had their brains tampered with. Are you actually scared?"
"Brains tampered with?" Repeating Stewie's assessment, Chris formed a hypothesis, but due to limited information, he couldn't confirm his suspicions yet.
As Chris was momentarily lost in thought, Peter had already pulled the car into a driveway. Lois asked curiously: "Peter, is this the right place?"
They could see that the adjacent yard was already crowded with people, and several Weber grills were set up, with sizzling, aromatic meat cooking on them.
"This is it! Everybody out!"
Hearing Peter's confirmation, Lois exited the vehicle. She surveyed the surroundings, finding the environment pleasant enough, but couldn't quite figure out what the group next door was doing.
Were they welcoming the Griffin family? Or just having a normal neighborhood cookout?
When the people in the yard noticed the Griffin family emerging from their vehicle, they began conversing in hushed tones—but their words were deeply disturbing.
"Is that them? Only one family showed up? It'll be a miracle if even one of them is suitable!"
"Be grateful anyone came at all! I still think the old method was better—just advertising on Craigslist attracts such mediocre candidates!"
"Hey, I don't agree with that assessment!"
A woman holding a kebab pointed at Lois, who'd just stepped out of the car. Her throat bobbed visibly, her eyes filled with hungry anticipation.
The people chatting nearby were alerted by her reaction and turned to look, then were similarly transfixed and couldn't tear their gazes away.
"Looks like we hit the jackpot! This time we actually attracted such a prime specimen!"
"Shame this woman must be middle-aged, and clearly she's birthed several children already."
One person, observing Chris and the others who hadn't yet exited the vehicle, stated with absolute conviction.
The woman with the kebab, however, grew even more excited: "Isn't that even better? If this woman were younger, it wouldn't be our turn to bid!"
"Haha, excellent point!"
Hearing this, two women beside her exchanged knowing smiles, nodding in strong agreement.
But simultaneously, coldness flashed in their eyes—because from this moment forward, the three of them had become direct competitors.
After Lois was appraised, Chris followed, also causing a chorus of excited murmurs.
"Oh my God! Is this some kind of Captain America super-soldier?"
"I want that body—everyone else find another candidate!"
"Ha! Can you even afford that price? Such arrogance! I think that first fat guy is perfect for you—he'd be usable after some liposuction!"
"Hahaha, that person appears to be this boy's father. Since this young man has such an incredible physique, his father's genetics can't be bad either. If you don't want him, I'm quite interested."
A frail man in a motorized wheelchair chuckled as he spoke.
He was absolutely fed up with his own weak, deteriorating body and desperately wanted a powerful physique like Chris's—but unfortunately, such specimens were not only rare but intensely competitive.
After repeatedly losing bidding wars, he'd been forced to settle for recipients who had the potential to develop such physiques. And it seemed his luck had finally turned.
Just as this thought crystallized, such a perfect candidate had appeared.
He examined Chris's physique, which was even more impressive than a professional bodybuilder, then glanced at the obese Peter, already imagining the perfect body he'd develop after inhabiting that genetic vessel.
"Oh? I didn't expect to see an intelligent non-human species. Is that a Labrador Retriever? Does anyone want to experience life as another species?"
When Brian hopped out of the car, an elderly man with failing eyesight, leaning heavily on a cane, asked in a raspy whisper—clearly he'd set his sights on Brian's body.
Seeing no one respond, the old man chuckled: "Then I'll reserve this handsome dog in advance!"
These people were positioned about fifty yards away from Chris and the others, and their conversations were deliberately hushed.
But for Chris, with his enhanced abilities, such a short distance was no different from them speaking directly into his ear.
However, for Brian, although he possessed his species' natural hearing advantages, his poor lifestyle habits meant his auditory capabilities were only marginally better than an average person's—he couldn't detect whispered conversations from that distance.
And hearing these people dividing up ownership of his family's bodies as if they were shopping for used cars, Chris immediately understood the situation.
If his instincts were correct, they'd stumbled directly into the Family Guy universe's version of Get Out.
Fortunately, Peter had found this advertisement online himself—otherwise Chris would seriously consider killing Joe when they returned home.
Because in one particular parallel universe timeline, Joe had worked as a human organ broker.
In that reality, he'd tricked Peter and Lois into visiting a seemingly pleasant retirement community for a vacation, intending to harvest Peter and Lois's organs for wealthy clients.
Fortunately, Peter and Lois were protagonists with plot armor, so they'd naturally escaped safely.
As a result, Joe hadn't given up and had later targeted Cleveland—another member of the Drunken Clam quartet—and had eventually succeeded in replacing his paralyzed legs with Cleveland's functional ones.
However, in this universe, Joe was clearly not that morally compromised, and this wasn't a trap he'd arranged.
Just as Chris dismissed his suspicions about Joe's involvement, Meg finally dragged herself out of the car.
And this final member of the Griffin family greatly disappointed those who'd been eagerly anticipating.
"Jesus Christ! Is that ugly kid really not adopted? How can she be so hideous—completely different genetics from the rest of them!"
"Hey, you're mistaken—that appears to be a girl!"
"What?! That's not even remotely funny."
"Charlie's not joking—that person really is female, just extraordinarily unfortunate-looking."
"Son of a bitch!"
Meg stepped out of the vehicle and noticed the group of people at the cookout showing disgusted expressions. She asked in confusion: "What's wrong with them? Did someone get food poisoning?"
Chris, knowing the horrifying truth, didn't tell Meg the complete story, but merely hinted cryptically: "Perhaps they witnessed something so disturbing it caused their sanity to plummet?"
Stewie, catching Chris's veiled reference, smirked darkly. "Ah yes, the cosmic horror that is Meg's face—truly Lovecraftian."
"Shut up, Stewie!" Meg snapped, though she had no idea what he actually meant.
As the family gathered their luggage from the car, Chris remained hyperaware of every resident watching them with predatory interest.
His death-accident ability continued sending subtle warning pulses—this town was absolutely dangerous.
But at least now he knew what they were dealing with: body-snatching cultists who lured unsuspecting tourists to steal their physical forms.
Chris's mind was already formulating contingency plans.
If things went sideways, he could always engineer a series of fatal "accidents" for these creeps. After all, his supernatural abilities were specifically designed for creating deadly coincidences.
"Chris! Stop daydreaming and help with the bags!" Lois called out.
"Coming, Mom!" Chris responded, while mentally preparing for what was certain to be anything but a relaxing family vacation.
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