The Hunger

by Whitley Strieber

  After placing the matchbox in the ashtray, he left.

  The fire would be a furious one. Ten minutes from now only bones would be left. If the fire went much beyond that everything would be destroyed.

  When John reached the street dawn was already beginning. A few day people were about, a girl in a white leatherette car coat clopping toward the W. T. Grant Building, a young man with a shade of moustache getting out of a cab. The second edition of the Times was being tossed off a truck at the corner newsstand.

  Nobody noticed him. For now. His whole body was relieved as if of gravity itself. Later would come desolation as the new blood died, but for the moment he felt as if he could leap up into the spreading sunlight. As he proceeded along Forty-third Street the last of the night people crept away. There sighed from them all a weariness completely at odds with the spring dawn slipping down the office towers. They dragged themselves away while pink clouds glided westward in a luminous sky.

  A fire engine blared past, the firemen clinging to it. Their faces were bored and determined, frozen with the expression common to men who are intimate with death.

  Manhattan began to come alive more rapidly. People were pouring out of the Seventh Avenue subway, coffeeshops were getting crowded, buses were swinging past with windows darkened by the crush of passengers.

  John could feel her in him. Her past seemed to whisper in his veins, her voice to jabber in his ears. In a sense, she haunted him; they all did. Was the hunger satisfied by their being or just their blood? John had often wondered if they knew, if they felt themselves in him. From the way he could hear them in his mind, he suspected that they did. Miriam angrily dismissed the notion. She would toss her head and refuse to listen when he brought it up. She would not accept that you could touch the dead.

  As he walked he counted the hours since last he had closed his eyes. Thirty-six at least. And during that short time he had needed three victims. Their energy was some compensation for the lack of Sleep, but it couldn’t go on forever. Each one had less impact than the last.

  He found that he could almost hate Miriam if he wished, she who had made him. It was not so much the fact that she had lied to him about his life-span as that she had trapped him in an isolation even more awful than her own. He had come to terms with his cannibal life, accepting it as the price of immortality. Even for that the price was high. But for this? His hunger had cheated him. For this he had paid too much.

  He went on foot to Sutton Place; there was no percentage in risking a cab. When he turned onto the street there were shafts of sunlight between the buildings, well-dressed people hurrying to work, cars pulling up before elegant foyers, doormen whistling down cabs. The innocent brightness of this world assaulted his conscience, made him feel the blackest shame. Their own little house with its green shutters and marble sills, with its red-brick facade and window boxes full of petunias, contrived an atmosphere of warmth and joy. A repulsive falseness. It seemed to John like a newly cut tree, its leaves still robust, the message of death not yet risen up the trunk.

  “Morning,” Bob Cavender said. He was a naturally ebullient man, the Blaylocks’ neighbor, Alice’s father.

  “Morning,” John said, affecting a slight accent.

  “New on the block?” Cavender did not recognize this suddenly aged version of his neighbor.

  “Houseguest. Staying with the Blaylocks.”

  “Oh, yes? Good people. Music lovers.”

  John smiled. “I am a musician. With the Vienna Philharmonic.”

  “My daughter’s going to love you. She spends half her life at the Blaylocks. She’s a musician too.”

  John smiled again and delivered a courtly Viennese bow. “We will meet again, I presume,” he said.

  Cavender passed on down the street, trailing a hearty goodbye. How normal men could maintain their confidence and good cheer amid the chaos of life was one of the most fascinating mysteries that John had encountered. The Cavenders of the world never realized the truth of generations, how short was their time and brief their ways.

  There was a hush inside the house. Miriam had opened a pomander jar and the front hall was full of its rich scent. John went upstairs. He was eager to examine his face in a mirror. But when he got to the bedroom he hesitated. A deep, dead cold spread through him. He stood in the sunlight beside the pink-curtained window, terrified of the mirror on the back of the bathroom door, afraid to take another step.

  For so long he had been balanced at the age of thirty-two. Along with the sudden aging of his body there had come a black flood of confusion as his brain atrophied. The assurance of youth was rapidly evaporating, and in its place was this preoccupied stranger, rapt only to the betrayal of the flesh. He found himself unable to remember dates, names, events. Things were colored by an unsettling newness, even things he must have seen many times before.

  A tiny sound broke the stillness, the drip of a tear on the floor. “Coffin,” he said. His voice had changed so, deepening into age. All the years he had cheated were taking their revenge on him at once.

  At the end of the last century he had visited a medium, planning to take her when the lights were out. But just as her fingers twisted down the gaslight something awful happened. With a sound like a tearing curtain dozens and dozens of different faces appeared in her face, like a crowd at the window of a burning house. All were known to him — his victims. The medium screamed, her eyes rolling, head lolling.

  He had run from that horrible place, literally staggering with fear. A day later the New York Evening Mail published an item to the effect that the body of Mrs. Rennie Hooper had been found in her parlor. Her fingers were still on the key of the gas lamp. They assumed it was heart failure. Miriam insisted there was no touch with the dead. But she wasn’t human, she didn’t know anything about the relationship between a man and his dead.

  The dead world glowered forth at him. Suddenly, an image of the whore exploded into his mind’s eye, her flesh blackening in the flames.

  His stomach twisted until it felt as if it were ripping out of its body and he clamped his fists to his eyes, willing with all his strength that the vision of death before him, of deliverance into the hands of his victims, would dissolve. But it did not, rather it focused and confirmed. He realized that the demons of hell were not demons at all but the men of earth without their costumes.

  To Sleep in safety, Miriam had gone to her attic room. John might well be able to penetrate the security system around the bed. She huddled on the hard floor fighting a nightmare. But it came relentlessly on, bursting through the Sleep like fire through straw, grasping her mind, forcing it to see:

  A foggy morning near Ravenna. She had come here with the other citizens of property, when the Emperor fled Rome fifty years ago. Dew lies on the marble sill of her bedroom window. From deep in the fog comes the singing of rough-voiced Vandals on their way to raid the Imperial Palace. They move slowly through the mist, marching along just beyond the herb garden, their horned helmets making them look enormous. They will not pass this great house without plundering it, not even on their way to the palace of Petronius Maximus.

  Keeping her voice steady, she calls Lollia. The girl comes swiftly across the marble floor, her slippers hissing on the stones. Miriam does not need to speak. “It is finished,” Lollia says. “He hasn’t made a sound in hours.” Miriam takes Lollia’s white face in her hands and kisses her full on the mouth, feeling the trembling fervor of a kiss returned. “My love,” Lollia says softly, “the barbarians —”

  “I know.”

  Miriam drops her nightclothes on the floor and strides naked across the room. The smell of the oil lamp guttering on her night table mingles with the sharp scent of the leather cloak she removes from her chest. She dresses in traveling clothes, aided by her lover, who has kindly taken the place of the dead servants.

  Then Lollia goes off to her own room to change. They have hidden the horses and carriage in the Peristyle. Distantly, there is a crash, the sound of m
erry laughter: the Vandals are at the stables. Miriam races across silk carpets, her cloak swelling behind her, and goes down the stone stairs to the basement where in olden times slaves attended an elaborate furnace. With the coming of inflation those slaves were sold, and the dying convulsions of the Empire diminished the amount of coal available. As for the slaves who remained — Eumenes saw to them.

  Miriam had stationed Lollia beside the great oak door all night. Only an hour ago had she reported silence. Now Miriam feels safe in opening the door. She throws back three bolts and pulls with all her strength. Slowly it swings wide.

  She screams.

  The shriveled thing attached to the door by its finger and toe nails is unrecognizable as Eumenes. The room reeks of new blood. On the floor are the husks of his last five victims. Around him is a puddle of blood, having run out through his dead digestive system. His skeletal form is gouged; at the end he was terribly weak, his victims were almost too much for him.

  Miriam swallows, forces self-control. She grasps the thing by its shoulders and peels it off the door.

  Her ancient and beloved companion, her Eumenes. Odysseus returned at last, neither dead nor alive, somehow still attached to this ruined corpse — a spirit perhaps unwanted among spirits and forced to remain in the dead house of its body.

  She pulls his knees to his chin and forces him into a box of the hardest wood, feeling the quivering pulsations of his body. The box is fastened by brass and reinforced with iron. Hefting the precious burden on her shoulders, she mounts the stairs. She will never abandon him, she murmurs, never, never. In the hallway Lollia is dancing with agitation. She is a simple girl, accepting without question Eumenes’ “sickness,” never imagining that she must one day follow. The elegant rooms are filling with smoke. The girl’s eyes dart toward the rising Gothic shouts. Despite her terror she helps Miriam; together they take the chest to the carriage. They throw open the gate and Miriam snaps the reins.

  Behind them the ancient villa fades gracefully into mist and past times.

  It is slow going along the unrepaired roads. They must not approach Ravenna, not at any cost. Two women in a carriage loaded with baggage and gold coins are as vulnerable as it is possible to be.

  “Constantinople,” Miriam says, thinking of the boat waiting at Rimini and the terrors of the sea. Lollia huddles against her.

  Before her she saw a dark wooden wall. She was in the ship, hearing the wind shrieking in the rigging, hearing —

  A pigeon coo.

  Her eyes opened. She did not move at first. Then she remembered, she was in the attic. Her mouth was dry, the dream clinging like a rotten flavor. She sat up. Close beside her was the new steel chest.

  She hated these dreams. They did not interfere with renewal; indeed, they might be part of it. But they hurt so very much.

  Well, she’d have to put it out of her mind. She had a great deal to do. She had been methodically preparing for Alice’s transformation. It had taken all year to sift through the literature of sleep disturbance and aging research until she had pinpointed the most knowledgeable person in the field.

  Her approach to Sarah Roberts was to have been subtle and slow. Over time she would have befriended her, made Sarah’s knowledge her own, then slipped out of her life as easily as she had entered.

  She had never expected John to die so soon. Even after transformation Alice would have grown to maturity. The three of them were to have shared those years.

  But no more. Alice had to last, Miriam could bear nothing less. She ran her fingers through her hair. With the coming of the sun this little room under the eaves turned into an oven.

  Miriam left, taking care to cross the attic on the beams so that the ceilings under her feet would not creak. While John was still strong she could not afford to let him know where she Slept. He felt cheated and betrayed; they always did. The next time his fingers might well close around her throat for good.

  As soon as she opened the door to the attic she knew that he was home from another hunt. From their bedroom came a rasping sound that tore at her heart. He was crying. His intelligence, his sweetness, his exuberance — and above all the truth of his love — remained as alive as if the old John still existed. As she entered the room he fell heavily, thudding against the wall.

  He began to pull himself up on the dressing-table chair. She watched the wheezing struggle appalled — he had weakened badly in these past hours. The gray skin was cracked, the hands reminded her of the claws of an animal.

  His eyes, yellow and watery, sought her. He looked at her. She could hardly bear his face. “I’m hungry,” said a screeching, unfamiliar voice.

  She could not reply.

  He managed to pull himself to his full height and stood swaying like a hobbled buzzard. His mouth opened and closed with a crackling sound. “Please,” he said, “I’ve got to eat!”

  Without the Sleep their hunger became unendurable. The flawless pattern of life was broken, and the delicate balance crumbled.

  “John, I don’t understand this, I never have.”

  He leaned toward her, gripping the chair tightly. She was relieved to see that he dared not launch himself in her direction. It was unlikely that he could hurt her, but not completely impossible. She preferred distance between them. Her control of any situation had to be flawless. “But you knew! You knew it would happen!”

  There was no point in lying, the truth was obvious.

  “You must help me. You must!”

  She was unable to look at the accusation in those eyes. Before the truth of what she had done she could not find words, either of comfort or denial. She was lonely and human beings gave her the love that pets give. She sought companionship, some warmth, the appearance of home. She rejected her tears, her shame at what she had done to him. After all, did she not also deserve some love?

  John had heard her from the first moment she had moved. The fact that she had been Sleeping in the attic locked away from him decided it. For him it was a surprisingly cool decision and it admitted no room for reconsideration. He was going to hurt her. He was going to take her throat in his hands and crush it until she admitted the evil of what she had done.

  He watched her come warily into the room and feigned weakness, pretending to fall against a table. It was clear that she wouldn’t come near him if she thought that there was the least danger. Miriam was obsessively cautious.

  He was agonizingly hungry. Miriam was so healthy and beautiful, literally ablaze with life — what would happen if he took her? Would it be enough to cure him? Her odor was dry and lifeless, like a starched dress. She did not have that wonderful, rich smell that John had come to identify with food.

  Maybe she was poison.

  His anger poured out in everything he said to her, he could not prevent it. She told him she did not understand what was happening to him. He wanted to believe that she was a passionless monster. He tried not to think of her as human. But he loved her, and now he needed her. Why wouldn’t she understand that?

  He stretched out his arms, pleading for help.

  She moved back toward the door, the silken gesture of a cat. Her eyes regarded him as if there was something she was about to say. He realized how great the gulf between them had really been all these years.

  “I’m dying, Miriam. Dying! Yet you go gliding along, perfect and untouched. I know you’re much older than me. Why are you different?”

  Now her face clouded, she seemed about to cry. “John, you invited me into your life. Don’t you remember?”

  This was too much. He launched himself toward her, growling his rage, his arms extended toward her neck. Miriam had always been able to move fast, and she slipped away easily, retreating to the hallway. On her lips was a sad half-smile. The one thing that gave him hope was her eyes. They were glazed with fear, swimming with what could only be sorrow. As he approached her she turned, quick as a bird.

  He heard her feet drumming down the stairs, then the front door slammed.


  He was desolated. She had left him. Now he regretted his attack. Yet he hadn’t been able to stop himself, the urge was so sudden. Sooner or later she was bound to come back, though. She couldn’t bear to Sleep in hotel rooms for fear of an intruder or a fire. This place was so thoroughly equipped that a match couldn’t smoulder without being noticed, nor a burglar touch a window. No, this was her haven and she would return.

  John would be waiting.

  For fifteen minutes he lay on the bedroom floor trying to reach Sleep. But the hunger was there, insinuating itself into his veins, making him tremble with need.

  He pulled himself to his feet and went downstairs, paused at the door to the library. Books and papers were strewn about. Miriam was normally obsessed with order. He slumped down behind her desk, thinking that he might prolong his strength if he didn’t move so much. It was going to be damned difficult if he had to eat in broad daylight, and in this condition.

  There was a magazine lying open on the desk. The Journal of Sleep Disorders. Some project of Miriam’s. It was laughable, Miriam’s silly faith in science. The magazine was opened to an article with the wildly exciting title of “Psychomotor Dysfunction in Abnormal Dreaming Response: The Etiology of ‘Night Terrors of Adulthood,’” by S. Roberts, MD, PhD. The article was an utterly meaningless mass of statistics and charts, interspersed with sentences in the incomprehensible language of technology. How Miriam managed to make anything of such material was a mystery to John, and what she expected to do with it was just as obscure. Science, which so involved and excited her, seemed fearful to him, the work of the mad.

  John pushed the magazine aside, staring blankly. He had begun to hear a sound, a sort of high-pitched noise like a siren. It was a moment before he realized that it was coming from inside his right ear. It peaked and then died. In its wake was nothing: the ear had become deaf. He had to act, the deterioration was now very rapid.

  He went to the daybed, a place where he had Slept many times, and lay down. He closed his eyes. At first there was bone-tired relief. Again he did not Sleep. Instead, bright geometrical shapes began to appear before his eyes. These resolved into burning images of Miriam’s face, of Miriam standing over him during the agonizing time of his transformation.