The Hunger

by Ryan Casey

  “Sarah, I think it would be best for all parties concerned if you took a walk to my office,” Donna said, still staring at the rat. “There’s a lot we have to discuss.”

  As the Inspector escorted—or dragged—Sarah from her office/lab space, she noticed small crowds had gathered on her floor and the floor above. They looked over at her and whispered at one another. She could see in their eyes what her fate was. It was the look she had in her eyes when she knew a fellow colleague was going to be thrown out. A look of fear—of “Thank God they didn’t catch me.” A look of fearful relief.

  The Inspector placed his hand on Sarah’s back and made her walk past the crowds, along the corridor and towards the elevator.

  Never in her life since school had she felt such a level of shame and failure.

  She’d let Daddy down.

  Donna Carter hadn’t taken the decision to visit Sarah’s office lightly, but she was relieved she had now she could see the state of suffering the rat was in.

  “Poor thing,” Donna said. She stood in a quarantine room just off L32. She was with Phillip, who was responsible for the painless execution of the completed test subjects. Phillip was a bulky, quiet man; impossible to decipher his age. A young face, but spindly grey hair. Donna figured he’d been here living in the world of TCorps a very long time.

  The rat was still nibbling at itself. Donna could see the white-yellow of a rib poking through. It would all be over soon for it, at least. It would be put out of its misery.

  There was something about this rat, though. Something curious. Sarah Appleton had been rambling on about increased CD4 levels in her email and in their meeting before. An increase to 3,027/mm³ apparently. But now, according to readings, they were down to 483/mm³. Either Sarah had been bluffing, desperate for a breakthrough, or the CD4 levels were fluctuating.

  Phillip opened the lid of the cage and reached a hand in.

  “Do you, um… Do you mind if I get it out?”

  Phillip squinted at Donna. “Well, you’ll have to wear these,” he said, pulling off his yellow protective gloves and handing them to Donna.

  “Sure,” she said. Truth was, she felt for this poor little creature. TCorps might have tested on animals on a daily basis, but this was just horrifying. A poor little creature injected with something and subjected to… well, this.

  Yes, she was being a little hypocritical, but when money spoke, she was allowed to be.

  She reached her hand into the cage and weighed up the best way to lift the rat without causing it any more pain. She didn’t want to touch its exposed flesh. She wanted it to have a few peaceful moments before it dropped dead, that was for sure.

  “Just get it by the lower back,” Phillip said. “Get it by the lower back.”

  Donna’s fingers were just inches from the rat now. She felt kind of bad for having to grass on Sarah Appleton. But the report that Mr. Belmont delivered—the ultimatum he’d offered. She couldn’t ignore negligence, not with him breathing down her neck.

  Besides, if Sarah really had found something worth mass-producing, Donna wanted to be the one to bring it into her possession, but on her terms, not some labcoat’s.

  She felt a nick on her finger, and before she knew it she was pulling her hand back out of the cage and the rat was dangling from her finger and blood was pooling out and she was on the floor shouting and screaming and the rat was gone.

  “Fuck!” Phillip said. He rushed over to the large grey filing cabinets and crouched down to see if he could see anything. “Knew I shoulda done it my fuckin’ self. Knew it.”

  Donna stared at the glove on her hand. A small speck of blood appeared at the dirty yellow fingertip. She lifted the glove, and realised that it was her blood. The rat’s sharp teeth had pierced the glove, pierced her flesh, and now she had a little pinprick on the top of her finger.

  Phillip helped her back to her feet. “Little fucker did a runner.” There was a small trail of blood that led down to the maintenance pipes. “It won’t last long though, not with a wound like that. Hey—it chose the more painful death, that’s cool with me. Oh, er, you should go down to medical bay. Get that… that cut checked.”

  Donna stared at her finger. A rat infected with some supposed HIV cure had bitten her. Only at surface level, but it had bitten her nonetheless. She had to go get the cut seen to. Couldn’t take any chances, not in TCorps.

  “Thanks,” she said to Phillip, then walked around him and headed for the door of the gloomy room. Her head pulsated from the shock of the rat’s escape. It had all happened in some kind of blur. Now, she had to get her finger seen to. Get her finger seen to, then get the hell on with her actual job.

  She walked down the passageway of the large, open main area, her footsteps echoing with each step, voices mumbling below, above, all around her.

  She had no idea that the end of the world was inside her.

  11.

  Jonny couldn’t remember the last time his dad came home from his job in London just because his mum asked him to.

  The three of them sat around the circular table in the kitchen/dining area. Dad looked tired—he had dark rings under his eyes, which Jonny knew damn well were from anything other than working hard. He smelled it on his breath; he saw the guilt and the secrets and the lies, etched all over his face.

  But it was better to maintain the sense of normality than risk a shitstorm.

  Jonny scooped up a forkful of chicken and mushroom tagliatelle. It was far too rich, far too creamy, and in far too large a portion. Or maybe that was just because he didn’t eat as much nowadays. Regardless, the creamy sauce was clumpy, and stuck in his throat when he gulped it down.

  Just remember, the sooner you finish, the sooner the time to “talk” about whatever the fuck there was to talk about was over.

  “So…” Stuart said. He too seemed to be struggling with his dinner. He had the same forkful of pasta and chicken that he’d had dangling there for the last five minutes. Mum—she didn’t seem to be having a problem, but then again she served herself smaller portions. The cheater’s way.

  “So indeed,” Denise said, smiling at her husband and then at Jonny.

  Stuart placed his fork down. For a moment, his deep-set, tired eyes met Jonny’s, as he fidgeted around with his red napkin. Waiting for the right moment to speak. The right opportunity. Formulating the right words in his head.

  Destined to fail. Always destined to fail.

  “I… Well, your mum told me. About the, um, the CD4 count. Least they can finally start, y’know, treating you with some real respect now, right?”

  Jonny’s cheeks went warm as his mum and dad both looked at him, together in stasis, waiting for him to reply. The truth was, he was struggling. This wasn’t Dad. Dad didn’t sit down and talk about… feelings. It just wasn’t his way. The whole thing was a farce. A puppet show. He should just walk out of here right now and return to his room where at least he was real, everything around him was real.

  Except for the videogames.

  And maybe except for the porn bots he chatted to, too.

  “Jon’s taken it really well, haven’t you, son?” Denise’s eyes were bloodshot, with even larger, more tender-looking bags than her husband’s underneath. “But still, it doesn’t hurt to… to sit down and talk, does it?”

  Jonny gulped down another lumpy mouthful of cream sauce. He smiled. The lines of his face moved in exactly the form he’d intended. No shaking. Pure, convincing smile. “I’m at Stage I. I’m going to be put on medication to help ease the progression. Yes, the HIV is progressing. But we knew that anyway.” He paused and eyed his food. “So, erm… I don’t really know what there is to talk about.”

  Stuart looked at Denise, who peered back at him with a wary glance.

  “How, er…” Stuart dabbed his face with the napkin again, taking a moment to formulate whatever bullshit he could come up with. “How’s the music going? Selling well?”

  Wait. Not a hint of snideness. Not a fragmen
t of sarcasm. His dad legitimately asking about his music career. Something wasn’t right here.

  “Is there something you want to ask me? Or tell me? Really?”

  Stuart sighed. His forehead turned into a more typical, inquisitive frown. “Well, I just… I realise I, er… I haven’t been there much. For you. Or your mum.” He rubbed his hands together. Continued staring at his quarter-eaten dinner. “I just think it could be… be good for all of us if maybe, I, erm… I dunno. Spent a little more time here. Helped you get yourself… well, not on your feet, because I know you’re on your feet. But I dunno. Maybe it’s a good idea. Worth a shot. Right?”

  Denise smiled at Jonny. “Your dad’s going to start taking an extra day off a week. You and him can go out on little trips. If you like, of course.”

  Little trips. Holy fuck, this conversation was getting weirder by the moment. “Are you ill, Dad?”

  Stuart tutted and rolled his eyes. “No. No, I’m not ill. I just… I want a shot. This whole… this progression. It’s woken me up a bit. And I realise I’ve been a bit of a tool about it all. So yeah. If you’d like, we could just spend a day together once a week.”

  “Does it have to be a full day?” Jonny said.

  Stuart and Denise both exchanged another cautious glance.

  “I’m just joking. Yeah, sure.”

  Jonny stood up with his half-eaten food and walked over to the sink. Silence at the table.

  “You… You’re sure?” Stuart asked. His eyes were wide.

  “Sure,” Jonny said, turning on the tap. Hanging around with his dad one day a week wasn’t his idea of fun, but perhaps it’d be good for him. It’d get him out of the house once a week.

  Not that he needed it. He wasn’t saying that.

  But it got him out. Got him into the world. And if it was shit, which it probably would be, at least he could say he tried.

  “Well, that’s great.” Stuart smiled. “That’s great.” He took a large forkful of his food and swallowed it down without as much as a chew. “And don’t worry. We won’t go anywhere where, y’know, you could get sick, or…”

  “Dad, I’ve got HIV. Not AIDS. Not yet.”

  “Right,” Stuart said, as if he’d forgotten the difference between the two but clearly just hadn’t been arsed enough to do his research. “It’ll be… It’ll be—”

  Stuart’s speech was interrupted by his vibrating phone. He stared at it for a few moments, the happiness and trance-like joy that had just been on his face washed away by fear and hesitation. Normal Dad was back. He excused himself, and left the table.

  Denise rose, her plate empty. She was grinning. She walked over to Jonny, put her plate down, wrapped her arms around him and gave him a squeeze, which dug into his ribs.

  “Good lad,” she whispered, as Dad’s footsteps echoed down the hallway. “Good lad.”

  Jonny wasn’t sure why he’d been so reasonable with his dad. In a strange kind of way, since he’d found out he was Stage I—since he’d seen evidence that the HIV really was progressing—it had… liberated him, somewhat. He was dying. He knew that. He’d known it all along.

  But now his mum seemed to have accepted it, in a strange sort of way. And his dad, well… If his sudden change of mood said anything, it was sudden realisation of the reality of what was happening.

  He pulled his phone out of his pocket. That text from Brad was still there, unopened, unread. (At least to Brad it was unread. The wonder of the smartphone)

  Anita’s having a massive do on Fri if you fancy it. Hear there’s a lot of fit girls going from UCLAN. Just saying…

  He placed the phone back in his pocket without opening the text or replying to it.

  Maybe he would go along, after all.

  Forcing a smile and forcing that God-awful pasta shit down his neck had been hard enough to handle.

  But now, as he walked out of his kitchen, Stuart realised today was just going to be one of those fucking days.

  Sarah was calling him. Sarah who he’d slept with last night. Sarah who, yes, he’d opened up a little too much to.

  But calling him? Knowing he’d be back home with his wife and his sick son? What the fuck was she thinking? Thank fuck Denise didn’t ask questions these days. Thank fuck neither of them did.

  “Hello? Sarah?”

  “Stuart… I… I’m sorry to call you. It’s—”

  “Sarah, now isn’t a good time,” Stuart said, standing in the narrow hallway beside the front door. He’d closed the door to the kitchen, and he could hear plates clinking around, a tap running. Washing-up time. No chance of a disturbance.

  “I realise you must be with your family and I’m sorry,” Sarah said. Come to think of it, her voice sounded like it was breaking up. “It’s… There’s something I need to tell you though. Something I wanted to tell you, but… but it wasn’t the right time, not then.”

  Stuart scratched his forehead. He heard footsteps close behind him. He turned around. The kitchen door was opening. Fuck. Change the topic. Change the subject. “I, yeah, Ted. Yeah, I filed those reports. Did they not send properly or something?” He raised his voice.

  The footsteps disappeared from the kitchen door.

  “Ted? What—”

  “Sarah, listen. I… I really like you,” Stuart said, returning to a whisper. “I really do. But things… they aren’t good right now. Work—they told me to take some time off after today’s no-show. Some bullshit about bad performance. And I—I can’t tell that to my family. I fucking support this family. And I just can’t let anyone find out, so, so—”

  “Slow down, Stuart. Slow down. Look, I’m sorry about your job. I’m sorry about that, I really am—”

  “I’m at my fucking wit’s end, truth be told. I’m stuck here eating shitty pasta and telling my son all this… I can’t stop visiting London. I have to pretend I’m still at work. Maybe… Maybe I could see you. Friday?”

  A pause on the other end of the line. Stuart had just stopped himself from saying he’d been “telling his son all this crap about spending time together and bonding.” Really, he was just looking for an excuse. A desperate way to get in with his son for when the shitstorm caught up with him. When the drinking, the drug-taking, the fucking vagabond lifestyle that he’d been suspended for caught up with him, and Denise found out about everything. He needed something. Some leeway. Or he’d lose his family completely.

  “That’s what I’m calling about,” Sarah said. She paused again. Her voice was muffled. Quiet. Lacked the confidence it had earlier. “I… I don’t know where to start. But I… Well, at TCorps, I’ve—We’ve been running tests. Tests for… for months now. Years, maybe. And all these—these tests have been on this… this… this HIV/AIDS antidote.”

  Another pause on the line.

  “What?” Stuart asked.

  “It was coincidence, us meeting,” Sarah continued. “When you saw me in Ceviche, I—I was pissed off about my boyfriend, but mainly because of this project. My—TCorps’s project on this HIV/AIDS antidote, it was being discontinued, flushed down the drain, just like that. This project that we… that we spent months and months working on and perfecting. This project that works. All down the drain for financial reasons. And then I met you.”

  Tension rose in Stuart’s stomach. He heard footsteps in the kitchen. Chatting. Laughing and joking. Happiness between Denise and Jonny like he hadn’t heard it for months. “What… What do you mean, ‘it works’? What do you… How? Why would it be discontinued?”

  “It will be discontinued unless we find somebody willing to… to test it out. A way of proving it works. And I know it works. I—I’m 99.999% certain it works. I’ve seen it. But—but the powers above, they work differently. They work on profit. But I can show you evidence. Real evidence of what it does. Real evidence of how it increases the CD4 count.”

  Stuart could see where this was going. Seeing Sarah in Ceviche Bar, her apparent lack of interest in him before he mentioned his son. Her strange questions
; questions that suggested she’d known him a lot longer than she had. “That’s why you…” Stuart lowered his voice. “You slept with me to stay close, didn’t you? That’s what this is… was all about to you, was it?”

  “No,” Sarah said. “No, Stuart, it wasn’t. I just… I saw you in that bar. I saw you with all your… your defences peeled back after a few drinks. And I just saw a man who wants to do the best thing for his son. For his—for his family. And this antidote. If your son takes it, just think of the possibilities. Just think of—of the impact on the rest of the world. HIV and AIDS, wiped out for good. We can send out shipments to Africa. Imagine that, Stuart. Just imagine how different the whole world could be if your son—”

  “And this is by the book, is it? Like I’m going to just hand my son over and have his brain turned into fucking jelly, or whatever. This is wrong, Sarah. Very fucking wrong.” His voice was rising in volume and his muscles were tensing but he couldn’t help it.

  “It’s safe,” she said. “I can give you my word. The worst it can do is nothing at all. It definitely can’t reduce CD4 counts, if that’s what you’re wondering. I’ve tested the formula over and over and all I see every time is an increase. An increase in health, happiness—an increase in life.”

  Stuart rubbed his sweaty forehead again. He couldn’t actually believe this was happening. “Right. Right. And who exactly have you tested on?”

  Another pause.

  “Well?”

  “Rats. Lab rats.”

  Stuart burst out laughing, but he certainly didn’t feel happy. “Fucking rats? You want to use some dodgy, rat-tested chemical formula on…” He made a conscious effort to lower his tone again. “On my son? Fuck off. This conversation ends here.”

  “Do that, if you want to lose your family,” Sarah said.

  Stuart was about to cancel the call, but the sincerity—the sharpness—of Sarah’s words sent goosepimples spreading across his arms. “You what? You want to repeat that?”