Devouring Urge — Nicola Vallera

Back home for Christmas, a college student called Jim visits his father, Mr. Twig, head of a lawyer’s company. Mr. Twig asks Jim to cancel his return flight because he wants to introduce him to a young woman and tells him he must marry her. Jim gets upset and says he already has a girlfriend and wants to tie the knot with her, but his father is inflexible. A quarrel arises, and when Jim is about to leave, Mr. Twig says their family is not human, came from another planet, and devouring human flesh is what they do. After the initial shock, Jim realizes that what Mr. Twig says makes sense because he occasionally feels the need to eat people, even though he rejects it. The young man tries to persuade his old man to give up the vile habit, but that doesn’t make his father happy, and going against family lore might not be so convenient if you’re a Twig.