The Hunger

by Whitley Strieber

  There was no reason to be enraged at the old man.

  Miriam. She would know, she would understand. The thought brought all the glee back and Sarah started running again. It was wonderful to feel so free in the streets like this, so utterly unafraid.

  She found herself passing Carl Shurz Park. Why exactly she had come this far east she could not say. Mist was starting to fall, blowing like smoke in the streetlights, making the park’s paths glisten as they had last night. Sarah slowed to a walk.

  The little park had lost all its mystery and terror. A Baby Ruth wrapper clung to a gatepost, a dismal loop of kite string hung from a tree. In the distance the East River muttered with the rising tide and tires hissed on FDR Drive.

  This was the real world, Sarah’s world. She came to the gate she had entered last night, saw the path leading up into darkness. If she went in, what would she find?

  Empty benches and silence. Nothing more.

  Last night had been a bad dream. She moved on, going more slowly toward Miriam’s house. She was left with a single, practical wish: find out what she could do about this awful craving. It was beyond an appetite.

  As she went down East End Avenue and turned west to York she passed the exhaust fan of a restaurant. Cooking odors poured into her face.

  She was revolted.

  People were willing to eat garbage these days. Her mind seized on the familiar image of the peaches they used to get from their backyard tree down in Savannah. They had been rich and yellow-red. She wished she had one now.

  “Please, Miriam,” she said aloud. “Help me.”

  By the time the house finally appeared she was livid with need. Try as she might she could not discover what it was she wanted. It was as if life itself was the food she required. But what nutritional need could possibly translate into such a desire?

  Sarah rang the doorbell. Instantly the lock clicked and the door swept open. Miriam stood in the dark hallway. Arms outstretched, Sarah ran forward, attaching herself with a gasp of relief. Miriam made no sound closing the door, her own arms coming around Sarah. Miriam could be so very tender.

  When Sarah calmed down enough to talk she began to babble thanks, to explain that she understood now what Miriam had given her, she knew that it was the very longevity she had been trying so hard to achieve in the laboratory.

  “That isn’t all it is.”

  No, that was true. Despite her relief and happiness there was still this awful, cloying need — and with it a growing revulsion for normal food. Until now she hadn’t thought about Miriam’s diet. Her confusion must arise out of the fact that she had no instinctive craving for what Miriam ate, and what must now also be her own food.

  “Come.” Miriam took her by the arm, led her upstairs. The stairway and hall were brightly lit. Miriam opened a door to a dark room. “This is my bedroom,” she said, “you were here yesterday.” Sarah allowed Miriam to lead her in, close the door. The darkness was absolute. It would be a few moments before Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the rapid changes in light intensity. Miriam pushed her by the shoulders, sitting her down. “Wait. I am going to relieve your hunger. Be prepared, Sarah. This is going to be quite unexpected.” Sarah obeyed the calm reassurance of the voice. She thought with childish delight, ‘she’s glad to see me.’ There was a high-pitched sound, like the scream of a dying rabbit. “Open your mouth!” Miriam tone was now strident, demanding that Sarah do as she was told. A hot stream sluiced down her throat, hot and pumping, while the reedy little scream got lower and lower and finally died away. For a horrible instant Sarah had thought that this was a stream of urine, it was so hot and saline, but the effect it had on her dispelled that fear almost at once.

  Sarah and Tom had occasionally taken a little cocaine. It lifted one, in the first instant, to what had up until now seemed the pinnacle of pleasure. It was nothing compared to this.

  Sarah kicked, threw her head back, lost the stream, then lunged forward in the dark, seeking more. A fleshy something was thrust into her mouth. “Suck!” More came when she did, better than what had come before. Each time a new swallow of it entered her mouth stars exploded in her mind. Angels were singing around her, singing the most glorious euphonies.

  Then the pulsing hotness was withdrawn. Sarah lurched forward, sobbing, trying to find it again, her body and soul blazing with pleasure beyond intensity. In her mind she felt the cool clarity of spring rain, but it was in her heart that the greatest pleasure rested. “Welcome to the kingdom,” Miriam said. She turned on the lights.

  Sarah screamed. The sound was like exploding bells in her own ears, not a shriek of fear, but of delight wild beyond words. Miriam did not look a thing like a human being, but she was beautiful! “I thought I would take off my makeup.” This was the Goddess Athena, Isis — Sarah could not find a word, a name . . .

  The eyes were not pale gray at all, but shining, golden, piercingly bright.

  The skin was as white and smooth as marble. There were no eyebrows, but the face was so noble, so much at peace that just seeing it made Sarah want to sob out the petty passions of her own humanity and have done with them forever.

  The hair, which had been concealed by a wig, as gold as the eyes, was soft, almost like smoke, finer than the hair of a baby. Angel’s hair.

  The majestic being that had called itself “Miriam” now spoke. “You shall learn secrets,” it said in a new tone, the voice of authority absolute. Sarah had to suppress an impulse to shout with delight.

  Suddenly, Miriam’s face seemed to jump at her. She heard words, quavering, concentrated with effort, inside her head. “Sarah, I love you.” Then they were gone, as if the speaker had released a desperately difficult effort.

  “Oh my God! You —”

  “Projected my voice telepathically. Yes, I can touch your heart.”

  Sarah wasn’t so sure. There was little scientific grounding for notions of telepathy.

  At this moment, however, she didn’t much care. As her stomach digested the mysterious new food extraordinary perceptual changes were taking place. First, she became aware of a new sensation in her body, one she had never felt before. It was strength, the profound wellness that must be experienced by powerful animals. She found that she could also call upon a sense of smell so improved that it was virtually a new addition to her body. The room, in fact, was a maelstrom of odors. She could smell the cool scent of the silk coverlet on the bed, the mustiness of the carpet, the faint sharp-sweet odor of the beeswax that had been used to polish the furniture.

  And there was something else, something familiar and yet not familiar — a terrible odor, meaty and strong, but also by far the most exciting scent in the room. It was under the bed. She bent toward it.

  “Not yet,” Miriam hissed. In an instant she was beside Sarah.

  “It smells wonderful.” Childishly, she felt petulant at being denied access to whatever was hidden there. Miriam drew her close, pressed her face to her white skin. This diverted her. The new sense of smell drew in an aroma that brought music to mind. As befitted someone so beyond the stunted nature of men, Miriam’s scent was more than addictive. Sarah rested her head there, vowing that never as long as she lived would she move, never would she be denied this — this heaven — again.

  Miriam heard pounding at the door below. If Sarah had seen the look in those golden eyes she would have thought no further of angels.

  Gently Miriam detached herself. Obviously, Haver had sorted things out sufficiently to come here. Sarah moaned as Miriam laid her on the bed. Sleep would soon overwhelm Sarah after the relief she has just experienced. It was well that she Sleep. There was no need for her to see the events that were about to occur. John, hiding in the attic, was about to make the move against her that Miriam had anticipated.

  And Tom Haver was about to take the full force of it in her place.

  12

  JOHN WAITED UNTIL HE WAS sure he heard two voices, then he put his hand on the lock. He closed his eyes. When he turned that lock hi
s life was going to come to an end. He would never, by his own free will, move again.

  But at least he would be able to take this magnificent revenge with him — for as long as he must remain aware.

  The lock clicked. The door slammed open, smashing John against the far wall. He fell to the floor, his dry skin tearing like paper. Dark shapes tumbled out into the attic. There was a dry, old odor, like the smell of ancient leather.

  For a long time only faint rustling sounds were heard. John had not known exactly what they would be like, but he had assumed that they would move faster than they did. Miriam must not —

  Something touched his foot, came slipping up his leg. He kept his eyes shut tight, he did not want to see it. There was a tiny sound, the remains of his own voice, crying.

  They soon discovered that he was useless to them. He heard the scraping as they pulled themselves toward the door to the lower part of the house, the thuds as they went down the attic stairs.

  “Open up!” Tom pounded on the front door. He hadn’t expected to be ignored. All the more it confirmed to him that Sarah was in there and his presence was not appreciated. “I’ll kick this damn door in!” His voice echoed up and down the street but he didn’t care. Let somebody call the police. He would welcome the help. He stepped back and gave the door a hard kick — and almost fell into the hallway. The door had opened on its own.

  The entrance gaped black. A whispering sound abruptly stopped. Tom could see somebody back in the shadows, crouching low. “I want to see Sarah Roberts,” he said as he strode across the threshold. He had intended to leave the door open to get some light from the street, but it closed as soon as he was inside. The smoothness of its motion and the decisive chunk of the lock made him suspect that it was being controlled from elsewhere in the house. “All right, Miriam, enough is enough!” he flailed, seeking the wall, then began to slide his hands along its smooth surface trying to find a light. He pressed an old-fashioned button switch but no lights came on. “Oh, for God’s sake!”

  The whispering began again, closer this time. He recoiled. There was something awful about it, something avid. He pressed back against the front door. The handle would not turn. “Get away from me!” He kicked, met air. The whispering grew louder and louder, becoming a frenetic chatter. It was not a voice at all but rather the sound of movements, as if a swarm of insects were crawling down the hallway.

  Tom twisted the handle of the door, threw his weight against it, hammered on it. It might look like wood but it felt like steel.

  To his left was an archway leading into a living room.

  Windows.

  He stepped forward. Something came around his right ankle. He yanked his leg free but now it attached itself to the other ankle. He stamped his feet but it was no use. Both ankles were grasped. “Sarah!” The pressure became pain, searing, excruciating, forcing him to his knees. He clawed the darkness before him, grabbed toward his agonized ankles, and fell forward into a tangled, ropy mass. His legs kicked, his arms flailed. Every movement seemed to entangle him further with whatever it was. Thin fingers groped in his hair, slipped around his neck. He screamed and screamed, pulling at the ropy substance as best he could. A fingernail popped into his cheek and cut through all the way down to his chin. The pain made him bellow, but he managed to move so that it missed the critical blood vessels behind the jaw. “Sarah!”

  Tom’s hands connected with something solid — a head. He pushed back with all his might. There was a crackling sound and the fingers released his hair. Again and again he smashed at the thing, feeling it break like glass beneath his blows.

  He pulled himself to his feet and lunged past it into the living room, rolling across the floor, brushing the stinking dust it had left on him to the floor.

  His cheek, his ankles and his hands screamed in pain. He stared into the darkness. Had he killed it?

  What the hell was it?

  “Sarah, it’s me! Come back! You’ve got to get out of here!”

  He saw the shadow of somebody standing at the far end of the room, a tall, thin individual with a bobbing head. It did not look any more human than the thing that attacked him had felt. Its outline was dim in the light from the street.

  He didn’t understand at all what was happening in this place. Only Sarah was here — somewhere. Every fiber of his body screamed at him to jump out a window, to escape, to get away from whatever monstrous evil had infected this house —

  But Sarah was here.

  “You! Where is she?” He took a step toward it. Another. Its head stopped moving. Abruptly it dropped to the floor.

  Another one appeared in a doorway that led into the rear part of the house. He could see it marching like a man whose knee joints had been fused. Then it too dropped to the floor.

  The scrabbling sound began again.

  “Sarah Roberts!”

  The sound rose as the things crossed the floor. Tom’s hand went to his cheek, touching the open wound. In that instant he knew that he had to leave this place. If they reached him again he was going to die.

  To his left was a sun porch with French doors leading to a garden. He stumbled toward the doors, grabbed the handle and jerked it at it. Locked.

  He didn’t try to unlock the door, but took a chair and hurled it through.

  He ran wildly across the garden, flailing in the shrubs, seeking some kind of a fence. At last he came to the edge of the property and climbed the brick wall he found there, cutting his fingers deeply on the shards of glass embedded in the top.

  Atop the wall he paused, looked back at the house. There were no lights. Not far behind him the shrubbery was waving madly as something struggled through it.

  He jumped six feet to the sidewalk.

  Back in the world again. A woman walked toward him leading a dachshund. He brushed past her to the corner and hailed a cab.

  “Riverside emergency,” he gasped out.

  “You bet.”

  They stitched him in the brightly lit emergency room and bandaged his hands. He told them a window had fallen out at his apartment.

  What had actually happened he did not know. Perhaps it had been real, perhaps some kind of complex illusion designed to frighten him away.

  He had them call over some detectives from the Twenty-third Precinct. Half an hour later he met them in his office.

  “So you want us to go this house and get out your girl friend?”

  “That’s right, officer. I have every reason to believe she’s there against her will.”

  “Kidnapped?”

  “Psychically kidnapped. Influenced.”

  “It doesn’t sound like a crime. She’s not under age —”

  “Of course not! You’re telling me I can’t get help.”

  “Doctor Haver, you haven’t reported a crime.”

  He let them leave. When the door closed he could contain himself no longer. In his defeat and loss he wept, muffling his face in his hands to deaden the sound.

  Sarah had been at peace until she heard somebody call her name.

  Tom?

  She was drifting on the softest of waters, in the moonlit sea . . .

  He screamed.

  She opened her eyes. In her mind was a vivid image of Tom. “I love you.” The screams pealed again and again, so frantic that Sarah clapped her hands over her ears.

  Abruptly it was over. After a moment Miriam’s voice drifted through the door. “It’s all right,” the voice said, “sleep now.”

  “Thank you,” she replied. But she thought, ‘please don’t let him be dead.’ She had to go to him. For that she somehow had to get out of this bed. She swayed when she sat up, shook when she put her feet on the floor, had to grab the bedpost for support when she tried to move.

  Helpless, almost overcome with sleep, she sank to the floor.

  She lay her head down, wishing she had never left the bed. It was so cold! Her eyes opened, she tried to gather enough energy to pull herself back up.

  It was some ti
me before she realized that she was staring into a face. Somebody was lying under the bed, still and silent. Sarah sighed, all that escaped of a scream.

  It was not a peaceful face, but a sad one.

  So this was Miriam’s “food.” Sarah gagged with the memory of it. And yet it sang in her veins. Slowly she extended her hand. Her own eyes closing as if she were under the influence of some opiate, she stroked the forehead of the person whose life she had taken.

  She Slept.

  Miriam moved about the house struggling with her failures. The body of Tom Haver was nowhere to be found. She was not really surprised at his escape. His attackers were fierce but they had little real strength. Poor man. All his survival had gained him was a harder death. He could not be allowed to survive, not with what he now knew. If she was clever, his death could be arranged in such a way that it served a purpose.

  She followed a trail of broken plants to the garden wall. There was Eumenes, arms outstretched, mouth lolling open, lusting toward food he could never swallow. Astonishingly repulsive.

  She remembered lying with her head in his lap on the slopes of Hymettus.

  She returned them all to their resting places, forcing their remains into the chests. At last there was John, slumped against the wall of the attic. She picked him up, holding the wrists together with one hand, carrying him with the other. “I know you can hear me, my love,” she said as she placed him in his container. “I’ll make you the same promise I made the others. Listen well, because you must hold this in your memory forever. John, I will keep you beside me until time itself comes to an end. I will neither abandon nor forget you. I will never stop loving you.”

  She pressed him down into his steel tomb until his knees were against his chest and slid the cover closed. Weeping, she spun the bolts one by one.

  Tom lay in their bed alone. Each time he had dropped off, shouting terrors had jolted him back awake. His face was a dull haze of throbbing pain, his left eye was swollen closed.

  He kept trying to understand what had happened to him. No matter how he worked it out, however, there just wasn’t a satisfactory explanation.