Consumption

by Heather Herrman

  Pill once again pushed himself forward and then stood, leaning against the arm of the chair as he tottered. “It ain’t so easy for some of us.” He grinned. “But there you go. I’ll get the truck started and the dynamite out and ready.”

  Erma nodded at him and then looked at the teens. Hesitantly, Star stood, and in her best snotty teenager imitation said, “Like, okay, I’m standing. Now what, Mom?”

  John answered for her. “Now we work on your attitude.” He tossed Javier’s ax, which he was still holding, toward the pair. “You and your brother both. Clean that off, boy, and get your sister a weapon. Nobody ever said you wouldn’t have to work for a living in this family.”

  As Erma stepped toward the door to help Pill outside, she felt her mouth stretching into a smile, which stopped halfway across her face. It stopped because she wondered if it might be the last chance she ever had to wear it, and she didn’t want it to disappear just yet. She wore it trembling upon her lips into the night air of Cavus and let a ghost of it linger even as they all tumbled into the truck and backed down the driveway and toward the end of something she could not name.

  She wore it even as they drove directly into the belly of the beast.

  5

  Grady Anderson, or what had been Grady Anderson, stood on the metal catwalk at the top of his factory, watching as the last of the communion wafers were bundled up and placed in the back of the company van, ready for transport. He still wore the yellow slicker, but the rubber of its slippery surface had begun to split in places, leaving the exterior looking like a spatula-ripped egg yolk. The van door slammed shut, and Grady closed his eyes, allowing himself a glorious few seconds in the minds of his children, listening to them feed.

  Because it lived in the body of a man, in the bodies of many men now, it had the benefit of their knowledge. Each one that it infected, each new Feeder, opened its mind to him, whether it wanted to or not. The problem before had been twofold. First, there had always been the Keepers. That was his sister’s doing, ensuring that there would always be an eye on him, an eye to keep him buried so that he would not rise again. She was like a crow on a gravestone, making sure the dirt below didn’t stir. He’d been trying for so long, so very long, and the damned bitch always kept him down. But she was no one, and he was many. He was his father’s child whether his father wanted to recognize him or not.

  Once, a very long time ago, he and his brethren had tried to climb from the earth into the very heavens, to the top, but his father would not allow it and cast him back down to the earth, and then, not content with this, under the earth. He and his brethren were the Unfavored, the Unlucky, the Fallen. Because what had been created by a father with love could not be destroyed. Ever. So he and his brethren were left to rot below the ground while his father and his sister and all the other siblings, who had been chosen because of their weakness, because of their willingness not to ask for anything, to accept only what was given, remained aloft. But now…

  Mankind had destroyed themselves. The sweet, sick fucks. It was what he loved the most about them, why he had always loved them, longed to be a part of them. His Father had it wrong, had thought to try to bring the love and light of humans forward, had thought to make them bow and scrape in submission to him, but for what? Why? The Many knew better. He loved the dark in humans, the dark and the depths, the rotting and the lies and, above all, the desires. Humans were born to consume, to be consumed by their desires.

  He would teach them. He would help them to fall just as he had fallen.

  And the true beauty of it all was that humans were aching to become Feeders. They wanted to consume, that’s what His Father didn’t understand. To not allow them to, that was the real sin.

  Which was why the beet factory was so brilliant. When he’d awoken in the body of Grady, he’d come to understand so many things about this new world, about all the ways in which its humans had given in to its desire. They were consuming at rates like never before. Eating and fucking and destroying anything they could get their little hands on. And he’d never loved them more. They did all of it, all of this consumption at such a furious rate, it had never been easier for him. He only needed to make it available to them, to put it in front of their faces, and they would feed. And now. Now it was so easy! They made everything in batches, learned from the last war that they’d been in, and they consumed and consumed without asking what or why. Now they would consume him.

  Before, he’d only been caught because he’d had to do it so slowly. He’d awake into a body and from there begin to turn them. But even though his Feeders could blend, there were certain signs, signs that the Keepers knew to look for, and so sometimes his children were caught and killed, and He was put back to sleep. But often He’d turn the first few, and they’d hide well enough and then force others to feed on them, and He would grow. Yes, He would feed and grow, and it was beautiful. Like last time, when He’d almost broken out of this small space, had almost moved on. But the Keepers, that fucking redheaded cunt of a girl in particular, had stopped him only just in time, had buried him and forced him back to his bed.

  Not anymore. It always took time to turn the strongest of his children, and it took time for them to grow strong enough to turn others once they had Become, but now He would put all of their strength together and send it out into the world.

  Because in this new era the Keepers were no more and God, the pitiless fuck of a Creator, was nowhere to be found, nor were any of his Helpers. Nor was Grady’s sister. No. The world was his. His to take and his to feed upon. To create an army of Feeders to feast upon. Some they would eat and some they would take to their bosom, but all would be well. The Festival Service had been but a trial. Now the whole world would be his.

  One by one, throughout the weeks before the Festival, the Feeders came to the factory. Some of them even worked there. Where excuses were needed, they were invented. It was important not to raise suspicion. Most of the Feeders were too weak to deposit any of themselves into their family yet, and to feed upon them could be unwise if discovered. There was to be no outside meddling. No meddling. They sent this message loud and clear among one another. Even those that had not turned yet received it, though they didn’t know that they were receiving it. All the same. They put off that phone call to the aunt in Michigan, the brother in Kansas, for another day.

  There were many of them now. So many. Soon there would be everyone. The bowl, a large silver mixing bowl the size of a bathtub, gleamed in the back room of the factory. This was to be the communion bowl for his greatest triumph. It would be used to make the sugar that would be consumed by all. Flesh from his flesh to be born from this bowl.

  Grady had watched as each Feeder came to the bowl, took the silver knife that hung from the chain upon it, and cut a piece of themselves, a small, insignificant piece, into the bowl. So small, yet when the time came…all their blood would come together, and the whole world would eat him. From grocery store to grocery store across the land, his sugar would go out in various wraps, in various languages, hidden behind different nuts and candies, meats and drinks. In communion wafers, too. It would go out, and they would consume it, as they consumed everything else. And then He would be inside them. They would be Feeders, and they would make others Feeders, and on and on and on it would go.

  And now it was ready. It was ready and perfect, because He’d seen it work at the church in that glorious bloodbath that would be forever remembered as The Beginning.

  Grady raised his head to the factory’s ceiling and smiled. “Fuck you,” He said.

  The voices of his children joined him as one, a chorus. Fuck You!

  One by one, they were beginning to join him, his children, returning to the factory from their feasts. Thirty or so of them were already gathered around him, and even now, two more—a woman and a child—came through the door. Grady listened to their thoughts, felt their desires. Because desire was the one thing that remained with them, it was, to his mind, their true essence. More
so than souls or goodness, or whatever his sister wanted to believe. Desire. Hunger.

  I’m going to get him back for this, the stupid bastard, the woman thought, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Thinks he can keep money away from me.

  Hungry, thought the little girl beside her. So hungry. She could feel Grady in her mind and looked up at him and smiled. The little ones were always the purest. He smiled back at her.

  Grady opened his mind and felt all of their thoughts, all of their desires, bathed in them like the warm saltwater of blood.

  …never liked her. Bitch had it coming, wanted me to touch her, wanted it…

  …eating and eating and eating. Never full! So sweet! So juicy…

  …fathers are supposed to love daughters…always stopped me before…how it should be…

  …burn. Watch it burn and see the pretty fire of all of it…

  …respect me now. Kneel, fucker. Kneel!…

  …want you to want me. Think of me, want to feel my cunt…

  …such a lovely ripping sound. Pulling it down, knocking, tearing…

  Beautiful, his children. So beautiful. There was one more group coming. One final group to turn, but even now, He felt them approach, saw their arrival through the eyes of his children. A pitiful few. A last handful to gather before the final victory, before He sent himself into the great, wide world.

  It would be so soon now. So soon that the whole world would be his children.

  Part VI

  In the Belly

  Chapter 23

  1

  “I’m riding in the front.”

  Javier didn’t wait for anybody to tell him no before he swung open the rusted-out door of Pill’s pickup and got inside, pushing the ax that nestled against him in its makeshift holster gently aside. Pill, who was already in the driver’s seat, looked over with annoyance.

  “Ain’t no time to be worried about who’s riding shotgun, boy.”

  “Ain’t no time for lectures either,” said Javier, mimicking the old man’s tone. From the side mirrors, he watched the nerdy-looking man—“Professor,” Javier had started thinking of him as—help his wife into the back. Star climbed in on her own, not looking at either of them. He noticed that she was carrying something under one arm and wondered what it was. Back at the house, he’d tried to give her a knife from the kitchen but she’d refused. Javier watched in the mirror as Erma moved over in the truck bed to allow Star a place beside her, but the girl ignored the offer, sitting across from Erma instead.

  Good girl, Javier thought. He didn’t like or dislike the couple. He just didn’t want any more of the bullshit that had gone on back at the house. No more of that “come together” crap that didn’t do anybody any good. They didn’t need corny speeches to ride in a truck together and blow some motherfucking monsters up.

  Pill shifted the car into gear, and slowly the truck began to roll over the bumpy grass-covered hills. Straight ahead of them, like the castle of Mordor out of a goddamned library book, was the factory. Five minutes. Six, tops. They’d be inside. Which meant that Javier had to act fast.

  The plan they’d come up with back in the house wasn’t much different than the original: go to the factory and blow the fucking thing up. If they could. If they could even make it through the doors. Javier knew he sure as hell would.

  “He likes to play with us, remember,” Pill had said, as they’d stood huddled at the top of the stairs in Bunny’s living room, all of them coming to the realization that, because of Izzy, they’d lost any chance of surprise they might have once had. “The playing with us, that’s something Jessi stressed in her story. He’s interested in humans because of our flaws, our sins. That’s how they beat him last time.”

  “Should we try the same thing Jessi did?” Erma asked. “Pretend that we want to join him?”

  “He wouldn’t fall for it,” Pill said. “Not twice. No, this one’s going to have to be a good old-fashioned battle. We get in, plant the dynamite, and try to fight our way out before lighting it.”

  “That sounds like a Saturday morning cartoon, man,” said Javier. “It isn’t gonna work.”

  “It’s all we’ve got,” said Pill.

  “Do we all have to go?” asked John. “I mean, can’t just one or two of us go, let Erma and the kids stay here?”

  “I don’t see any kids, cabrón,” Javier said.

  “It has to be all of us,” Pill had said. “If we all get near enough to it, then there’s a better chance one of us will make it inside to plant the dynamite. Even if the rest of us fail. It only takes one of us. Besides, He’ll be expecting all of us. If we don’t all come, He might send the others out, and then there won’t be any way we can guarantee killing them all. And if even one escapes…I don’t need to tell you what that means.”

  “It means it wouldn’t matter if we didn’t die here,” Erma supplied. “It means that there’d be no world left for us to live in.”

  So in the end, they decided that the best and only plan was not much of a plan at all. They would all go and they would all die. That was what it amounted to. They’d all die, but first they’d try to blow the factory up.

  The truck hit a large rock, and its poor shocks sent Javier up from his seat, his head banging the cloth-top roof. “Watch it, old man!” he said.

  “You’re right,” said Pill. “I wouldn’t want to injure that precious head of yours any before we enter the apocalypse.”

  Javier grinned, despite himself. “That’s right,” he said. “World’s mightiest weapon, right here.” He reached up to tap his head with his fist, then stopped, catching himself at the joke. There was no need for it. They were in enough of a joke as it was, their plan no better than a Wile E. Coyote episode, with that goddamned coyote and his useless sticks of dynamite trying to catch the bird that could never be caught.

  Which was why Javier had sat up front. They weren’t going to be following the plan.

  “Listen,” he said, turning to Pill and trying to make his voice low and reasonable. “I got an idea. You sure they’re all gonna be in the same place, just waiting for us?”

  “I’m not sure, no,” said Pill. His skin was paper white and nearly transparent, Javier saw, studying the old man’s wrinkled knuckles on the steering wheel. “There’s no way to be sure,” Pill said, “but if what the girl said—”

  “Star,” Javier said. “Her name is Star.”

  “Okay. If what Star said is true, about the church and those wafers, then the beet sugar in there will be worth protecting. And since they can all hear one another, they all know we’re coming.”

  Ahead of them, the factory was no longer just an outline, but a full-blown building, its shape growing larger and larger in the window, from the size of a bug that could easily be cleaned away with a good squirt of fluid and rub from the windshield wipers, to a bird who’d flown too low and landed smack dead in the middle of it.

  “So what’s your idea?” Pill asked.

  Javier pulled himself straighter, reaching up his right side near the door to finger the ax’s sheath. The moment came into sharp focus for him as soon as he did so. The smell of old vinyl from the cracked and faded green seats became almost overpowering, and the heft of the silver metal inside the Ford’s rusted-out doors hurt his eyes. Javier turned his gaze to the face of the old radio on the dash, the tuning button missing its cover, only a silver peg now. Time stood still. He reached out with his free hand and turned the peg, the static interrupting, as music crashed through the speakers. The singer was a woman, and Javier made out the name Rosemary in the lyrics. Something-something Rosemary’s granddaughter. That was it. It didn’t make any sense. Wasn’t Rosemary a horror movie?

  Javier took a deep breath. He felt calmer now with the music, calm enough to do what he had to. “There isn’t any need for all of us to go in there,” Javier said. “You know it and I know it.”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” Pill said. They were half a mile out now. “But we’re all going, just the sam
e.”

  I am Rosemary’s granddaughter.

  The spitting image of my father.

  The words from the radio worked themselves in and around their conversation.

  “Just let me go, okay? By myself. You guys can wait outside and kill whatever comes out.” He slipped his fingers inside the holster and wrapped them around the ax’s splintered wooden handle.

  “You are going. We’re all going.”

  “That’s stupid! We don’t all need to die.”

  “I know you mean well, boy, but—”

  “You don’t know anything,” Javier said. Gently, he began to slide the ax from the holster, keeping his movements slow and steady. The ax was on his side farthest from Pill, near the door, so, if he was careful, he should be able to have it out and swung before the man even noticed.

  The singer’s voice rose to fever pitch on the radio.

  Pill tapped the brakes and the truck slowed. “I do,” he said. “Maybe I didn’t lose my wife to the Feeders the same way you lost your family—”

  “You don’t want to know how I lost my family, old man.”

  “—but I lost her to them, just the same. At the end there, those last few months that should have been our time to say goodbye, she was consumed by them. She wasn’t my wife at all.”

  There. He had the ax firmly in his hand now. All he had to do was turn, raise it, and let the well-sharpened head do its work.

  Javier turned his eyes to the empty knob of the radio tuner and focused on its silver point.

  2

  “You both doing okay?” John asked, trying to get Star to make eye contact with him. She didn’t. Instead, she kept her head low, buried in the journal Pill had given her.

  He felt Erma slide away from him and saw her scoot across the truck bed to lay a hand on Star’s knee. “Hey. You all right?”