Andy

Andy is a Walmart employee whose brief encounter with Maren turns an ordinary offer of food and company into a fatal meeting. He recognizes that she is hungry and alone, and tries to make room for her without demanding that she accept his help. Yet the closeness he offers brings her cannibalistic hunger within reach of another person: Maren eats Andy, then runs into the night. His role is defined by that painful collision between kindness and danger.

Identity and Introduction

Andy first appears outside Walmart, where Maren sees him beneath a flickering fluorescent bulb. A skinny boy in a blue polo shirt, he works at the store and approaches her at the curb. His acne immediately becomes the detail Maren notices, then resents herself for noticing: she recognizes how readily a visible difference can eclipse the person who has it. Their exchange begins with a practical question about whether she has a can opener in her purse, establishing an awkward, conversational ease rather than a formal introduction.

The two share food from the store. Andy explains that the food was probably past its sell-by date and, since it was headed for the Dumpster, did not count as stealing. When Maren offers him half her sandwich, he declines but thanks her and gives his name. She tells him hers; he says he has never heard a name like it and calls it nice. These small courtesies matter because Maren has little reason to expect care from strangers, and Andy does not treat her hunger as an occasion to shame her.

An Offer of Company

Andy takes Maren to his gold Chevy Nova, parked at the far end of the lot. Its bumper stickers include messages against meanness, an expression of gratitude, and a joke about regaining supernatural powers. He opens the passenger door and gives her back her rucksack, then makes his offer explicit: he will not take her anywhere unless she wants him to; he only thought they could sit, talk, and let her eat. The reassurance gives her an element of choice, and the car becomes a temporary refuge from the exposed parking lot.

He has bought her a small package of Oreos, a banana, cherry yogurt with a spoon, and a wrapped corn muffin. Andy watches as she eats, while she offers him an Oreo and again feels foolish for offering food that is not hers. A copy of The Master and Margarita, its cover showing a grinning cat with a pistol, lies on the floor of the car. The snacks and the book make the encounter tangible: Andy has tried to meet immediate hunger with food, while the two sit together in a space marked by his possessions and the possibility of conversation.

Maren asks him not to be so nice to her. Andy strokes her cheek and asks why he should not. Her response is bodily before it is explanatory: the smell of corn chips, cinnamon gum, and cigarette smoke makes her twitch, and she reaches for the door. Andy presses a button that locks all four doors. He says he will let her go if she truly wants to, but points out that she has nowhere to go and asks why she will not let him help. When Maren warns that she has done horrible things and may do them to him too, he grabs her shoulder and pulls her toward him. His conduct thus shifts from an offer framed around her choice to physical restraint, even as he presents himself as someone trying to help.

Fatal Encounter and Significance

The intimacy in the car is complicated rather than simply tender. Andy is alone, and Maren recognizes that he understands her own isolation; they eat Oreos and hold hands. She also hears an inner warning that loneliness cannot justify doing anything one wants. That tension gives the scene its moral pressure: Andy’s need for company and Maren’s need for shelter bring them together, but neither need can make her hunger harmless.

Maren eats Andy. The narrative’s aftermath focuses on her flight: she trips on the pavement as she leaves the car, skins her knee, and runs out of the parking lot into the night. She has never done this outdoors before, apart from the earlier incident involving Luke, and she does not know whether anyone saw. The public setting distinguishes this act from what she has done before and leaves her disoriented, unable to tell whether anyone is following her.

The Walmart stands amid cornfields, so the highway is the only direction she can run. Traffic is still heavy, and a Mack truck passes in a gust of hot air. Maren’s thoughts of finding her father disappear; she considers stepping into the road so a truck will kill her, reasoning that its driver would not be hurt or blamed. Andy’s death therefore leads directly into a crisis of self-destruction, not relief. His brief generosity makes the violence of the encounter sharper: he offers food, a place to sit, and companionship, while Maren’s hunger turns that offer into another irreversible loss.