The Hunger

by Ryan Casey

  “It makes me want to bite into your neck and drink your blood. It’s made me kill people and enjoy every moment of it. That’s what your ‘something’ is.”

  Sarah gulped. Jonny wasn’t sure where his words had come from. Probably the part of his body where his relief was located, too. Relief at the knowledge that this hunger was not of his doing. That it was something truly external that had entered his system. That he wasn’t insane.

  But did it make a difference?

  “Jonny, I’m so sorry about what has happened to you. I’m… I can’t even begin to apologise. But you have to understand that… that we’re here to help you. To get you better again. And I want you to understand that you aren’t a killer.”

  Jonny stared at her body closely. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Well, you aren’t technically a killer. You… The people with the infection—the thing we’re calling Touchstone… Those people should be dead. The wounds they have, they’re beyond saving. But it seems like Touchstone is a miracle infection, of sorts. Because of a sudden sharp increase in CD4 messenger cells and CD8 fighter cells, it can… It can actually bring people back from the dead. Well, if they’re properly nourished, that is.”

  Jonny thought back to Rebecca, staring at him from the pit of that murky pond. So she was alive all along. He’d killed her, infected her with Turnstone, and she’d come back with the hunger. It was starting to make sense. A twisted, brutal kind of sense, but sense nonetheless.

  “What do you mean? By… by nourished?”

  Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I think you know what I mean, Jonny. I think you know exactly what I mean. What happens, without getting too caught in the technicalities, is when somebody is infected with Turnstone, their CD4 cells—the cells that, as you know, deteriorate in HIV carriers—begin to multiply at a rapid rate. They multiply and multiply and multiply until they reach a breaking point. A kind of… tipping point. A—”

  “A hunger,” Jonny said. He smiled at Sarah again. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  Sarah nodded. “Right. A hunger. When this ‘hunger’ is nourished, the CD4 cells all convert to CD8 in a process like I’ve never seen before. And then it resets. We don’t know how long it resets for, but it does. And the process—”

  “Sometimes it’s minutes, sometimes it’s hours. But it’s always there, really. I can feel it now. It’s strong. Not the strongest it’s ever been, but every time I… I feed, I feel it getting stronger and stronger. I’m… I feel numb. I feel like I… I need to feast. If I don’t, I can’t focus and I get headaches and… I need distraction. I can do things that I didn't think were possible. Run for miles. But when I stop, I still need to feed. I need it more than ever. And when I do feed… I can’t describe the feeling to you because you couldn’t possibly understand.”

  A silence hung over the brightly lit room for a few minutes. Jonny could sense the people behind the mirror now. One, maybe two. Warm. Succulent. Fresh and ready to be consumed.

  “So you’re going to cure me?” Jonny said.

  Sarah cleared her throat and lowered her head. “Well, eventually, but it’s not as simple as that. There’s… There’s already others out there. Others like you. Others with the hunger. So we have to try something else.”

  She reached into the pocket of her white lab coat and pulled out a bloody chunk of flesh in a plastic bag.

  Jonny’s nostrils twitched. He edged forward, the belts digging into his wrists. Human. Just what he wanted. Just what he needed.

  “We’re going to find a way to nourish you… you people,” Sarah said, as she slipped the piece of flesh onto her white-gloved hand. “You’re the first human to be directly contaminated. So you’re going to help us find a viable alternative to human flesh and we’re going to get it out there while we work on a cure. But make no mistake about it, Jonny. Until we find a cure, life in Britain—maybe beyond, unless we get the borders shut as quickly as possible—life as a human is never going to be the same again.”

  She tossed the flesh in Jonny’s direction.

  Jonny caught it in his mouth in one and, just like that, his headache, his blurred vision, all of it was cured and everything was clear again.

  35.

  Sam Gomes had been forced to do a lot of things that went against his morals in his forty-two years on this earth, but firing shots at that seemingly defenceless blonde girl and the poor Cub Scout kid definitely topped his list.

  He sat in the passenger seat of the black van. Beside him, Jordan was sipping on a steaming hot cup of coffee, just staring out the window like him, completely silent. It hadn’t been easy, what they’d had to do.

  But their job was to clean up situations like the one they’d just dealt with, no questions asked, so what could he do about it?

  “It’s fucked up, don’t you think?” Jordan stared out of the van window and into the darkness ahead. He’d pulled up down by the River Ribble. A place where Jordan always seemed to visit after a tough job. A place to wind down, or something. Sam didn’t really understand it. He’d rather have just got home to his wife and kid and put tonight firmly behind him.

  “It’s just… Oh, I dunno.” Jordan shook his shaven head. “I just question things sometimes. I mean, what fuckin’ threat did those two pose, hmm? What was so fuckin’ important that they couldn’t live anymore?”

  Sam thought back to the blonde girl at the pond. The look in her eyes. Distant, it was, but at the same time, totally focused. She gave him a look that no human had ever given him before. A look of complete… well, desire. Desire, but of a different sort.

  “We don’t ask questions,” Sam said. He lifted his coffee cup, but the weight of it signalled to him that it was already empty. “We get on with our jobs. That’s all we do. All we’ve ever done.”

  “Just stop. You’re a cold fucker, y’know that, Sam? A real cold fucker. But I know you don’t like this. Just as much as I don’t like it. You seriously tellin’ me that you were comfortable with what we just had to do? I mean, the kid was desperate. The way he bit you. Fuck. Desperation, right there.”

  Sam felt a twinge on his hand. Jordan was right—there was something off about the way the kid had bitten him. It was too angry a gesture for a kid. A kid should’ve been scared about what was about to happen, not angry. He expected him to beg for his life, not bite for it.

  “Yeah, well,” Sam said, picking up his empty coffee cup again, more out of habit than anything. The back of his hand was stinging, actually. Burning like hell. Strange, really. The little shit had really had a good chew at his hand. He’d wrapped it up in cloth, though, and hadn’t shown it to Jordan since he’d covered it. He didn’t want to attract any attention. Besides, his superiors had told them that they were entering a zone of “extreme contamination,” which meant that all things like bite marks would have to be reported.

  But it wasn’t such a bad bite mark.

  Besides, after what his superiors had just had him do—shoot a twenty-three-year-old girl and a God-knows-how-young Cub Scout boy in the head—he wasn’t too secure about reporting his wounds just yet. Who knew what fate lay ahead of him for his honesty?

  “Don’t have a lot to say on all this, eh?” Jordan said.

  Sam shrugged. “I’d rather just get home. I’m not like you. I don’t need to talk over all my fucking feelings. This is a job, after all. If you aren’t happy, then quit.”

  Jordan grinned, revealing a mouthful of silver fillings. “You know I can’t just quit, even if I wanted to. You know what quitting would mean for me.”

  He sipped back the last of his coffee, then turned the car keys in the ignition.

  “You keep those thoughts and feelings to yourself then, Sam. Cold fucker, you are. Cold fucker.”

  He stepped on the gas and drove alongside the River Ribble. The water glimmered in the reflection of the moon, which was plump and full.

  “Tomorrow’s just another day,” Sam said. “You just remember that. Mope tonight, get it
out of your system, then wake up fresh tomorrow and ready to go.”

  Jordan opened his mouth as if to protest, then let out a sigh. He shook his head. “Tomorrow’s another day. Another fuckin’ day.”

  Sam smiled.

  He scratched his hand, which was growing even warmer and even itchier.

  There was something else, too. Something he thought he recognised, but he wasn’t so sure. It was inside him. In his stomach, and yet everywhere else at the same time.

  “Pull over at the next services,” Sam said, itching his burning hand. “I could murder a burger.”

  Jordan never even got the chance to pull over at the services because by that point, it had already happened.

  36.

  Donna Carter had reached such a stage of hunger that she couldn’t even think out her entire name without her head searing with pain.

  Her vision had blacked out. She sensed someone beside her—the doctor, or a nurse, or an angel, or all three. She knew they were here for her. She knew something had happened—something bad? But then why did it feel so good when the hunger was satisfied?

  Satisfying the hunger. That’s what she needed. That’s all she knew now. All she wanted.

  She couldn’t feel her hands. Or her arms. Or her legs or her feet or anything. All she could feel was the hunger, inside her and outside her, spiralling around. Why couldn’t they just feed her? The nice doctor, the nurse, the angel. Why couldn’t they just feed her like they had before and she’d be all better again?

  One thing she could pinpoint was that it had been several hours since she’d last feasted. Longest she’d gone since the hunger first came along. And it got more intense every time. The need for nourishment.

  The need for flesh, blood, feasting on it and bathing and swimming in it forever and ever and ever.

  She wondered if what she was experiencing was death. She wondered if soon she’d be with her little Paul again, just like he was back then, just like he was in that picture at Gibraltar, smile on his face.

  Before the accident. Before the lorry smashed him into pieces.

  Small, warm, bloody pieces.

  She felt something for the first time in hours. The first bit of awareness inside her body. It was a warmth, moving down her cheek and towards her mouth.

  A tear.

  For the few moments of focus her brain granted her, she wondered what she’d done to deserve this fate. This was Hell. She’d been a good person. She’d been kind to others, treated everybody with the same level of respect they gave her. What had she done to deserve this… this limbo?

  She felt a prodding somewhere where her arm probably was. Or was that her leg? It was all the same now, anyway. Was this what it was like to be a vegetable? Or whatever politically correct word the papers used for nutters. If so, Britain should hurry up with legalising euthanasia after all.

  The prodding went away. The hunger grew. She could feel it, somewhere around her mind now. Somewhere around her head. A pulsating, piercing stab after stab. This was it. She was going away now. That’s what this meant—all of this. The Turnstone had finished her off. She just had to let it take her now. Let the hunger take her; let herself drift away…

  Just as the intense darkness began to surround her, she saw something with perfect clarity. It was a man. He looked young—twenty, maybe a little older. He was lying on a hospital bed, arms strapped down with brown leather belts, just like she was. She saw it with such clarity; such a perfect balance of high-definition colour, that it startled her at first. Was she dead now? Was he God? Or whatever that bloke was called who stood at the gates and let people into heaven?

  “Who are you?” she asked, but the voice came from somewhere within. Not from her mouth, but from a place in the centre of her mind. A place where the hunger resided.

  Then she saw it. She saw the visits to the doctors; she saw the moment he was diagnosed with HIV. She saw the man boxed into his dark, dingy bedroom, and she saw him step out again. She saw it all, everything, in perfect clarity, moving by at double-speed.

  And then she saw the party. The blonde girl. His teeth sinking into her. The disposal of her. Then the others that came after her. The Cub Scout guardian. The man from the tractor. Then the bald man with the dark, empty eyes and the sedative gun in his hand.

  She saw it all, all in a split second, and then nothing.

  She was stunned. If she could’ve gasped, she would’ve done. Maybe she did—or at least, maybe her body did. What she’d seen… Jonny Ainsthwaite, he was called. The man on the hospital bed, strapped down, just like her. With the click of a finger, she knew him. She understood him. She saw his life and she empathised.

  Was he just a fantasy? A vision at the brink of death? Was he little Paul, all grown up? No. He was real. The thoughts she’d had, so vivid and detailed next to the endless nothing she’d faced for the last few hours. He was real.

  And he was just like her.

  She tried to focus again. Focus beyond the cloudiness in her mind. Focus on the hunger, so strong, now, and so intense. Where are you, Jonny Ainsthwaite? Where are you?

  “I’m here,” he said.

  37.

  He heard her voice and he felt her moving through his mind, but he didn’t understand it.

  He was here, strapped down in the hospital-type bed, all alone. The doctor—Sarah—she was outside. The door was closed. And yet he could hear someone else. He could hear a woman.

  For a moment, he thought she might just be speaking through some kind of speaker in the room somewhere. But no. It was more than just hearing her. He could feel her inside his mind, speaking ever so faintly.

  He couldn’t describe it, but he could feel her speaking through the hunger.

  “Where are you, Jonny Ainsthwaite?” her voice said. “Where are you?”

  He focused on the words. Closed his eyes and focused on them as closely as possible. I’m here, he thought. I’m right here. Who are you?

  No reply. Nothing but silence. Fuck it—he was going completely insane. Maybe he was just fucking schizo after all. Maybe all this shit about “Turnstone” and the justification for his hunger was just the workings of his overactive imagination.

  “I understand. I understand what you’ve been through. I’m the same as you.”

  The voice stunned Jonny so much that he opened his eyes and pulled up against the belts around his arms. His heart pounded. Nerves built up in his stomach. He’d heard her voice. Louder, clearer. He’d heard her, whoever she was. She was speaking to him.

  But who was she?

  He closed his eyes again. Took a few deep breaths in and tried to focus on the hunger. He didn’t like doing this. It brought the visions into his mind. Visions of the flesh, the blood, and the delight he’d get from indulging in it. But it was also the place he’d heard the voice. Heard her voice. And he needed to hear it again.

  He focused. Focused on the waves of throbbing hunger sweeping up and down his body. He waited for her voice again. Waited and waited, but nothing. Fuck. He’d lost her. He’d lost his chance of finding out who the hell she was. He was on his own again.

  “I can hear you.”

  He almost jumped again, but this time managed to compose himself before he did anything stupid. There was her voice, loud and clear and crisp now, as if she was not only right next to him but inside his mind.

  “Who are you?” he asked with his mind.

  Before she replied, he saw everything in his mind’s eye. He saw her—a woman in her forties. Dressed in a blazer with a TCorps badge on. She worked here. She worked for them. But then something happened—the rat, biting her finger. The rat that… that belonged to Sarah Appleton, the woman who had told him about his condition. Donna, she was called. Donna Carter. She had what he had too. Turnstone. The hunger. And now she was strapped down to a bed, just like him. They were test subjects. Guinea pigs. Trapped.

  The recent images faded away and Jonny saw something else. Like a dark cloud, another memory loomed ove
r. The boy. The young boy. Paul, he was called. Standing completely static in front of Gibraltar Rock.

  Then, spread across the front of a lorry, and spread across the road.

  The images stopped. His mind went blank. But he could still feel her. She was still inside his mind. It was like the feeling you got when somebody was watching you. Like a sixth sense.

  Except this really was a sixth sense.

  “Do you see now?” Donna asked.

  He did see. He saw it all so clearly. She was just like him—she had Turnstone. She was being experimented on, either for a cure, or for this “nourishment” bullshit that Sarah had told him about. She was a prisoner, like him.

  “What are we going to do?” Jonny thought. Even though he was communicating with Donna somehow—through the hunger—he wasn’t sure how it was going to help him and help her in the long run. They were trapped, after all. Tied down by the people that were responsible for this outbreak.

  Responsible for the death of his parents. His best friend.

  “You tell me there are others out there. Others with… with this Turnstone virus.”

  Jonny hadn’t told her that, but he figured he must’ve thought it at some stage. “It’s spreading. I passed it on to a girl, Rebecca. She passed it on to someone else. They’re not even trying to create a cure anymore. They’re trying to create an accompaniment. A way to make it easier to contain rather than wiping it out completely.”

  Another pause. A blankness in Jonny’s head. Come back to me. Speak to me again. Don’t go away.

  “What if we can contact them somehow?”

  Jonny paused. “Contact them? In what way?”

  “The same way we are contacting one another. I’m assuming you didn’t have telepathic abilities before you had the hunger. What if the other infected have it too?”