The Hunger

by Ryan Casey

Stuart’s phone.

  “Fuck,” Stuart said. His heart really was pounding. Work. They’d be calling to bollock him. Calling to tell him his trips to London were finished and he was finished and fuck, it was all over, every small ounce of happiness left in his life drifting away. He’d have to lie to Denise. He’d have to pretend he still had a job down here. He couldn’t give up his second life, not just like that. There were people he got on with down here. Friends. Lovers.

  Mainly lovers.

  “Don’t shit yourself too much,” Sarah said.

  Stuart reached for his phone, which vibrated against the white-painted wooden dressing table. “You don’t know my boss. Seriously, I’m shitting myself less than I should be.”

  Sarah shrugged and walked out of the door. “I’d be shitting myself more about when my muscular hunk of a boyfriend is going to come back.”

  Stuart’s heart sank even further. Her muscular fucking boyfriend. This was just getting worse and worse.

  He looked at his phone, expecting to see the familiar “WORK” number staring back at him.

  But to his surprise, it wasn’t work. It was Denise.

  He exhaled, and felt a whole clump of nerves disappear with that one breath. Strange, really. Here he was, waking up in another—another—woman’s bed, and he was feeling relieved at a call from his wife. Maybe he was getting too professional at this whole affair business. Maybe he was, at last, shredding the guilt.

  A positive thing.

  He answered the call and rubbed his other hand through his hair. “Hey, hun. Everything okay?”

  The other end of the line was silent. Come to think about it, it was strange that Denise was calling at this time. She knew he’d be at work.

  “Denise?” Fuck. Maybe she knew. Maybe she was here. Maybe—maybe Sarah was a fucking setup, or something like that.

  No. Stop it. Calm down.

  “Denise, are you—”

  “Stu, you need to come home. Today.”

  Stuart tensed his jaw. Maybe she was watching him. Her voice was shaky and he swore he could hear her sniffing. What did she know?

  “I don’t understand, hun,” Stu said. He peeked through the door at Sarah, who poured a glass of orange juice. “What is it?”

  “It’s Jonny,” she said. “We… we went for his checkup. The HIV, it’s… it’s progressing. His CD4 is down. He’s Stage I.”

  Stuart felt like a bullet had pierced his chest. “He… What does that mean? What does any of that mean? Is he—he—”

  “He’s okay, for now,” Denise said. She sniffed again. “In fact, he’s still got years left, the doctors say. And now they can start treating him properly. But it… it just brought it home, Stuart. It just brought it home. I need you here. We need you here. We… we need to talk. All of us, we need to sit down and talk about the future.”

  More relief emerged inside Stuart. Jonny was okay for now. Sure, the HIV had progressed to Stage I, but now he was manageable. He’d read about it on the Internet. People with Stage I of the virus lived with it for, like, decades.

  “Denise, I… I don’t know what to say.” He watched Sarah in the kitchen area. She buttered a slice of toast, her shiny hair dangling down her back in velvety strands. “I’m really snowed under at work, and I…”

  “We need you here, Stu. Just for the night. We need you here so we can talk. Jonny’s finally willing to sit down and… and have a proper conversation. Isn’t that great?”

  Stuart shook his head. “Yeah. Yeah, it is. It’s just… it’ll be a struggle. We’re just finishing these major accounts, and I—”

  “Come home. Please.”

  Stuart sighed. He leaned against the doorway of Sarah’s bedroom and scratched his forehead. The last thing he wanted to do was go home and spend a night with his family. Work was his escape from home. All of this was his escape from home.

  Besides, what was there to talk about? What the fuck was he going to offer in the way of advice to his son? What sort of an example was he supposed to be?

  “I’ll have a word at work,” he said. “No promises, but—”

  “Thanks. I’ll see you tonight. Love you.”

  The phone cut out before Stuart could respond.

  “Sounds like someone’s in trouble,” Sarah said. She held out a plate of buttered, slightly overcooked toast.

  Stuart buttoned up his collar. “Yeah. It’s… it’s some bad news. Back home. I, er… I shouldn’t be here. I’m really sorry.”

  Stuart pecked Sarah on the cheek, as she stood frozen to the spot, and made for the door.

  “Wait,” Sarah said. “Is everything okay?”

  Stuart reached for the handle. He wanted to ignore her. He wanted to walk out of this room, go back to his hotel room, pick up his stuff and leave London. But there was something about Sarah. A concern in her voice—a genuine concern for his well-being. She wasn’t like the others. The ones he stayed detached from, the ones he created false identities for before he fucked them.

  She was different.

  He turned around and half-smiled. She stared back at him.

  “It’s Jonny. My son. He… The HIV. It’s progressing.”

  Sarah’s mouth opened, then snapped shut again.

  For a split second, Stuart swore he saw a twinkle in her eye. A twinkle of… of pleasure? No. That was nonsensical.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that,” she said. Robotic. Forced.

  “Yeah, well. It’s Stage I, so he’s still okay. But you know. I guess it’s just the reality of it all. The reality that this thing is in Jonny’s system and this thing is progressing. Just kind of… brings it home.”

  Sarah blinked her watery eyes and smiled. “I really am sorry, Stuart. What if I, er… It doesn’t matter. But… yeah. Keep in touch, won’t you?”

  Sarah’s last words threw Stuart somewhat. He’d rarely heard them before, not with any real sincerity anyway. Usually, the moment he left the realm of New Woman Number 1, 5, 6, whatever, that was the moment their brief time together on this planet came to a close. There was no epilogue—just long, hard climax and a fry-up-based resolution. Aristotle’s Laws of Fuck.

  “What about your… your boyfriend?”

  “Oh, he’ll come around. But there’s nothing stopping us being… being friends, right?”

  Stuart’s cheeks grew hot. Now that was another question he rarely heard. Who the fuck would want to be friends with him?

  “We’ll keep in touch,” Stuart said, smiling. “And, er… well, thanks.”

  “Let me know how… how Jonny gets on.”

  Stuart closed the door and left the room before Sarah had a chance to say another word. He jogged down the staircase, sweat dripping from his armpits. He hadn’t even taken a shower. Her line of questioning, it was getting too real. Too personal.

  He pushed open the door and breathed in the fresh, crisp air of the car park, and somehow, he knew, right then, right there in that moment, that he’d be visiting this place again some time soon.

  After Stuart had left, she didn’t feel a shred of guilt about their night together.

  She drove out of Maida Vale and headed west on the motorway once she joined it, which took her directly to TCorps—just where she needed to be right now. She couldn’t be home when Harry returned. She couldn’t face him. Not because of any kind of “guilt,” though. Just because she didn’t want to break up with him just yet, not until she knew for certain what her next step was going to be.

  Stuart’s son had Stage I HIV. Yesterday, she’d had her proposal to Donna Carter snootily rejected. Bitch. If only she knew what she was really turning down. Probably jealous. Jealous her stupid fucking brain only saw her stuck working behind a computer.

  A higher-paid job, sure, but a soul-sucking one at that.

  She thought back to Stuart. To the look on his face when he’d told her about his son. What if there was a way? A way of getting him to agree to test out the antidote? Medical trials—TCorps could set those up.

&
nbsp; But again, they would take months to organise. Jonny might not even have months. Who knew with that virus?

  No. She was being stupid even considering it. She was jumping to the first possible sign of hope. Live testing on another human was a dangerous, criminal offence. She wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t.

  She scanned her pass at the gate and drove through into one of the many large car parks at the front of TCorps. The TCorps building looked so spectacular from outside, tall and lopsided like a design flaw, but a stunning design flaw at that. It was like something out of a science-fiction movie, which meant that no doubt it would look dated as hell in five years.

  But right now, it looked good. Really good.

  Sarah pulled into the car park, applied her ticket, and headed towards one of the main doors to the labs. She placed her belongings in a little plastic box and pushed it along a conveyor belt, like at an airport, before being scanned and sprayed herself. In all her years working here, she’d never once heard of a contamination in TCorps. This place was impenetrable. A fortress.

  She got in the elevator and headed to L78. She could still taste the remnants of alcohol on the back of her tongue. Or perhaps that was spunk. Both were sticky and sour the day after, anyway. Not nice at all.

  As the elevator doors opened, the echoing sounds of the main area surrounded her. Footsteps from floors above. People calling to one another right down at the bottom of the building. The steady, ever-present hum of life. An ants’ nest of chemical and technological breakthroughs.

  She walked down the corridor towards her individual office/lab space. She’d get to work on her daily analyses, then do a bit of her actual job—chemical testing down in the communal labs. And then, when she’d done her actual duties, she’d check on the rat’s CD4. See how it was getting on. Report the findings to her superior, Dr. Wilson, perhaps.

  Up ahead, she could see some people. A man and a woman, professional-looking, dressed in black suits. With them, Dr. Wilson, sticking his big, hairy nose in. Fuck. The sheer thought of that prick getting his greasy hands all over her HIV/AIDS antidote, the sheer thought of his gap-toothed smile when he took the credit for the discovery… it wasn’t even worth thinking about.

  The closer she got to her office, the more she started to realise that the three people were standing right near her door. In fact, they were very close. They couldn’t be…

  Wait. They couldn’t be waiting outside her office. Could they?

  “Miss Appleton!” Dr. Wilson raised a hand and paced towards her, grinning away.

  He never grinned. Not unless he was about to make somebody feel very, very shit.

  Sarah steadied herself. Gulped. They couldn’t be here for her. They couldn’t be.

  “Good timing,” Dr. Wilson said, stopping before her. “I was about to get security down here to open up your office, but now you’re here, there’ll be no need for that, right?”

  Sarah froze. She looked over at the people behind Dr. Wilson now, dressed in suits, expressionless faces. She knew she’d recognised them somewhere before. The man from the day Brian Dawlish’s office had been raided; the day he’d lost his job. The Inspector.

  And the woman. Her over-application of make-up, her thin-rimmed glasses.

  Donna Carter. She’d grassed. Fuck.

  “What is this… What is this about?” Sarah said, feebly.

  Dr. Wilson’s smile twitched at the corners. “Oh, just a little rumour I heard. A little rumour that you’d been testing on live animals without my permission. A little rumour that you’d been smuggling unapproved substances into your office. Just a rumour, though. Plenty of chance to prove it wrong.”

  As Dr. Wilson turned away, Sarah wanted to protest her innocence in hope that they’d all just walk away and forget to inspect her office space. But she knew that was hopeless. This was happening. She had to be honest. Straight.

  “I did what I had to do,” Sarah shouted, as she followed Dr. Wilson to her office door. The Inspector and Donna Carter looked on, empty faces, empty expressions. Robots for the corporate cause.

  “Let’s just take a look,” Dr. Wilson said. He held a hand out at the door handle. “Care to do the honours?”

  Sarah’s mind raced. The three of them, staring at her, waiting. She wanted to jump over the side of the railings and fall to her death below. She wanted to fall and fall and fall until the core swallowed her up and burned her and left nothing of her, nothing.

  She knew what would happen to her if they saw what she’d been doing. She’d hoped—naively hoped—that Donna Carter would show pity. That she’d show respect for her. It was a marvelous discovery, after all. Just because it was “unofficial” didn’t make it any less marvelous.

  “I’ve found something, Doctor. She knows. I’ve… HIV. I’ve found the cure. I’m—I’m almost sure of it.”

  “The door, Miss Appleton.”

  The three of them stared at her. Watching. Waiting.

  “I… I know what I’ve done is not technically by the books. But I’ve done it. And surely that’s the—the main thing, isn’t it? Surely that’s the—”

  “Don’t make us ask you again.” Dr. Wilson tapped his spindly finger against the metal door handle. “The door.”

  All of Sarah’s strength slipped out of her body and tumbled through the metal walkway beneath her feet. She took in a deep breath and reached for her key. There was no point in protesting anymore. It was over. She was finished. Fuck—they might even use the formula for themselves. If it worked, they no doubt would.

  But she would play no part. She was done. It was over.

  She lowered her head and walked to her door. She slipped the key into the lock and turned it, then gently pushed the door open.

  “I was only trying to make the company proud,” Sarah said, as the Inspector and Donna Carter brushed past her and scanned the room.

  Dr. Wilson placed a heavy hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “I’m sure that’s true, Miss Appleton. I’m sure that’s true. Now, where is it?”

  10.

  Sarah didn’t even attempt to withhold anything. The best hope she had now was to be open and honest about what she’d been doing behind the backs of TCorps. At least if she was honest, she might stand a chance of some kind of leeway. After all, if she managed to create some kind of HIV antidote, then surely that warranted keeping her job, right?

  The Inspector—a tall, muscular black guy in a suit, with a shaven head—examined Sarah’s desk. He flicked through everything with absolute care and attention to detail, no matter if it was scrap paper, disposed crisp packets, whatever. Everything was there for him to inspect. That was his job.

  “Where’s the animal, Miss Appleton?” Dr. Wilson peered at her. He was still smiling, but there was nothing genuine about it. There was no warmth in it.

  Sarah sighed and tilted her head at the laboratory desk. Dr. Wilson and Donna Carter—who had been quiet up to now, frumpy bitch—looked at the desk in unison, then their eyes wandered below.

  “Inspector, take a look under here, won’t you?” Dr. Wilson pointed under the desk. The Inspector tilted his head and frowned, unimpressed with Dr. Wilson’s interruption.

  “I was only trying to do something for TCorps. Something… something memorable.” Sarah spoke but that was all her words were—feeble words. She just had to say something to convince herself that she’d done the right thing. She had to have done the right thing, right? Potentially finding a cure to HIV. How was that possibly a bad thing?

  The Inspector got down on his hands and knees and reached under the desk.

  “You know, that’s what everybody like you says,” Donna said. It was the first time she’d spoken. Her eyes didn’t meet Sarah’s, though. Guilty for stitching her up. Over breaking the chain of confidence. Bitch.

  “Everybody like me?” Sarah said.

  “Yes. Everybody running experiments on the side. Well, the ones who get caught. That’s what they always say. They were only trying to help! They found
something groundbreaking! Do you not think if you really found something groundbreaking in your lab, it couldn’t have been found in the communal areas? Do you think you have to break company policy—break the law—to succeed here?”

  The Inspector pulled the cage out from under the desk. Dr. Wilson and Donna looked on, but Sarah kept her eyes on Donna.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “We’ll see what you make of my findings. I’ve got the cure to HIV right here in this room. I’ve got a proven way of increasing CD4 levels. I’ve—”

  “What the hell is wrong with it?”

  Sarah looked at the cage, which the Inspector had placed onto the table. She hadn’t even registered the rat, not at first. But now, as she stared at it, trying to make sense of its body and its form, she understood that something was wrong. Something was desperately wrong.

  The rat was sitting in the middle of the cage. Red sawdust surrounded it, which Sarah thought was strange because she hadn’t put any red sawdust in there, and in fact, she didn’t even know there was such a thing as red sawdust.

  “Holy fuck,” Dr. Wilson said. “Ho-ly fuck.”

  The red sawdust wasn’t sawdust. It was blood. A lot of blood.

  The rat was nibbling on its own flesh. It had small, stringy pieces of meat stuck between its two front teeth, which were also laced with blood. The side of its body was torn open. It turned back to it and picked at the wound with its teeth, more blood oozing out, the rat completely unaware of their presence.

  “So this is your cure for HIV?” Donna said.

  Sarah moved closer to the rat cage, but the Inspector blocked her. “It’s not… I swear, that’s not right. It wasn’t—”

  “Too right it’s not right,” Dr. Wilson said. He had gone pale. Clearly didn’t like the sight of a rat chewing itself, despite massacring a bunch of the creatures in the labs every day. “It’s… it’s eating itself, Miss Appleton. It’s eating itself alive.”

  The Inspector started to push Sarah out of the room. Donna stood over the rat, shaking her head.

  “I swear—I… Check the CD4 levels. Just, please! Maybe—maybe it just got hungry. Yeah, that’s it. It’d been eating a lot more lately and I—I was away yesterday and most of today. But check the CD4 levels before you do anything. I swear to—”