An Other Place

by Darren Dash

  The thought dies between synapses. A new one takes its place, propelled by an inhuman craving. I don’t have to go outside the cage to find human flesh – I turn and study the familiar body tucked away by the glass wall – I’ve got my own ready-made supply inside.

  I won’t eat Cheryl. I won’t eat Cheryl. I won’t eat…

  Hours have passed. Hours of sitting, staring, contemplating, drooling. Hardcore vegetarians claim that meat is murder. Well, it works the other way too — murder can be meat. Dead cow, dead sheep, dead human… is there any real difference? I may have had it before for all I know. The many restaurants I’ve dined in around the world, in less developed countries… who’s to say one of them didn’t run short of beef, rip a human arm from a corpse and stick it through the grinder? Even if that hasn’t happened (and the rational part of my brain knows it’s unlikely), aren’t we all cannibals by proxy? People die, are buried, get eaten by worms and insects, which feed birds and animals, which get eaten in turn by…

  No. That’s bullshit. A student could get away with it in a debating class, but in the real world – even this sham of a one – it’s bullshit. I won’t kid myself. I’ll go into this – if I go into it – with my eyes open. Eating Cheryl would be the act of a barbaric, tortured, pitiful man. I won’t try to ease my conscience with soothing rationalisations. The choice is clear — violate millions of years of conditioning and become the basest of creatures, or cling to my humanity and starve to death. For the time being, I’m lucid and moral enough to plump for the nobler of options.

  I won’t eat Cheryl. I won’t eat Cheryl. I won’t eat…

  I won’t eat Cheryl. I won’t. I won’t. Not even a nibble. Not even one of her little fingers, though there couldn’t be much harm in snapping off a finger and popping it into my mouth. That would hardly count. I mean, what’s a finger between friends? Cheryl wouldn’t mind. A little finger, a cut of thigh, a slice of breast, a…

  I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!

  There’s a voice in my head and it’s talking to me as if I’m another person, not letting me tune out, demanding I listen.

  Don’t be a fool, Newman. You’re going to give in to temptation eventually. If you were in poorer condition, perhaps you could hold out for death, but you’re a fine, physical specimen of a man. Look at yourself, still able to stand without feeling dizzy, able to walk, to reason. There’s days left in you, at least four or five if I’m any judge. You can’t hold out that long. If you think things are bad now, imagine what they’ll be like after another two or three days.

  What are you afraid of? Nobody will see. Nobody will know. The lykans? You don’t think they’re likely to stand in judgement, do you? Go ahead. They’re waiting for you to die, so they can laugh and piss on your bones. Don’t grant them the satisfaction. Picture their faces when they realise you’ve beaten them, that they failed to break you down. One little bite. The first will be the hardest. After a couple of mouthfuls you’ll never know what took you so long to get started. Do it, Newman. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do…

  The sun and moon can’t stay like this forever. They have to change back. I must ignore the voice of damnation and stand firm against it. How will I feel if I start munching on her, only for normality to set in a couple of minutes later?

  That won’t happen, Newman. The sun doesn’t give a fine flying fuck about you. It’s not doing this to tease you. You have to –

  “Shut up!” I scream, startling the nearby lykans. “I won’t eat her. It’s Cheryl we’re talking about. The woman I’ve had sex with. The woman I love.”

  Now who’s talking bullshit? the voice jeers. You never loved her. You used her. She was your easiest way of getting to grips with this place, of figuring out how things worked, learning the rules. It could have been anyone. You needed her to survive and that’s why you stuck by her, not because you were in love.

  Well, wakey-wakey, Newman, you still need her. You’ve got good mileage out of the lovestruck old girl but it isn’t time to trade her in yet. She’d want you to get your money’s worth. She loved you. If she’s in heaven now, she’ll be urging you on. You don’t want to disappoint her, do you? You don’t want Cheryl to cry and –

  “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” I roar, and the lykans howl gleefully.

  You’re weakening, Newman. I feel it. Only a matter of time, then…

  “Shut up,” I croak, but weakly.

  She’s in good condition. I examine her thoroughly – just curious, I’m not going to eat her, I’m not – and apart from some toughening of the skin she’s almost as fresh as she would have been alive. Hairier, granted, but not stiff or decomposing. Which would be good news if I was going to eat her.

  Not that I am, of course.

  But if I was…

  I make no big production of it when I finally cave in. I don’t throw my arms wide and beg forgiveness, or burst into tears, or offer the devil my soul. I simply pick up her left arm, tear through the tough, outer skin, and gnaw.

  It tastes like raw meat and that’s all it is, really. Think of it that way and it doesn’t seem so bad. Rare steak, no worse than raw drone.

  The lykans don’t approve of recent developments. They rattle the bars of the cage and scream abuse at me. Theo seems particularly irate. He slams his head so hard against the glass that he busts open his nose. The lykans nearest him lose their minds when they catch the scent of blood. They fall upon Theo and he disappears beneath their claws and teeth. He puts up a brave fight but is powerless in the face of so many foes. When the melee dies down and the dust clears, there’s no more Theo. I pause to mark his loss, then gnash on up past Cheryl’s elbow to the meatier sections of her arm.

  I have bad moments, when I snap to my senses, thrust away from the corpse I’m devouring and run screaming around the cage, but not as many as I was expecting. If Cheryl had been from my world, perhaps I’d feel differently, but I doubt it. The shameful truth of the matter is it’s a dog eat dog world and I’m the King fucking Kong of canines.

  I eat twice a day, not long after waking and at dusk. A few mouthfuls of water with each meal and a couple over the course of the day. I’m running low on water, have to be careful, don’t want to die of thirst, especially after the grisly lengths I’ve gone to in order to live.

  I spend the rest of the time drawing in the dust, hunched over shitting (my movements are a torment, because of dehydration, and it takes me ages to pass even the smallest and most shrivelled of stools) or trying to count the stars at night. The lykans have abandoned me, but not before moving all the drone limbs out of reach, the bastards. A few pop by every now and then to check I’m still here and bang their heads against the bars for old times’ sake, but they’ve realised I won’t crack and they can’t frighten me any more.

  I wonder what people are doing in other cages. Are there die-hards like me chowing down on their partners? I can’t see anyone except us cannibals making it through intact, not if the lykans have been preventing the drones from reaching the survivors. Maybe this is the start of a new phase for the city. Perhaps the next person who arrives from my world will have to face hordes of flesh-hungry cannibals, me among them, cooking pots in tow.

  Oh, Mother, if you could see me now.

  Finally it ends, one dark and lonely night. The moon changes fluidly, red draining away like coloured bleach from a toilet bowl. The city looks strange in the white light. I’d grown accustomed to the crimson sheen. Strangely, I’ll miss it.

  The wolfers sweep through the streets, eliminating the lykans. They’re excited when they spot me. “Look!” their leader yelps in a most unleaderly-like fashion. “Somebody’s alive in there.”

  They crowd round the cage, faces crinkling as they spot Cheryl’s corpse – not much left on the gleaming bones – and work out what I’ve been living on.

  “Need anything?” the leader asks, nervously handling his sword, as if afraid I’ll attack.

  I cock my head and grin. “If I had some carrots, on
ions and a pot, I could try my hand at a stew.”

  “Pardon?” he frowns.

  I laugh flatly. “Forget it. I’m fine. Best I’ve ever been.”

  “He’s acting strangely,” one of the wolfers mutters to the leader.

  “Can’t have been easy for him,” the leader sighs. “Every-body else we’ve seen chose to starve or kill themself. To hang on in there all this time, with nothing to eat except…” He points at Cheryl.

  “Do you think he killed her or waited for her to die?” another wolfer asks.

  “Like it snuffing matters,” the leader snorts, then orders his troops back into shape and sets off to continue the killing.

  “Good luck,” I shout after them. “Give the Alchemist a kiss from me. But no tongues!” And I laugh hysterically, like that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.

  I play difficult with the sandman when he arrives, refuse to stand in the middle of the cage and shut my eyes. He doesn’t try to force me, a model of understanding and sympathy. “Whenever you feel up to it,” he smiles. “No rush. I’ll wait. You’ve been through an ordeal. You’re not responsible for your actions.”

  “Know what I’ll do when I get out?” I growl. “I’ll slit your throat and eat you raw. That’s what I do. That’s who I am.”

  “You’re angry, Mr Riplan,” he says, “but that’s alright, you’re entitled to be angry. It’s good that you don’t keep it bottled up inside. You must –”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up,” I snap.

  After a few hours of stubborn, pointless resistance, I capitulate. The walls come down and the sandman goes about his business. I don’t attack him. For all my threats, I’m not a violent man. Besides, he’s a big, healthy-looking son of a bitch. Probably beat the living shit out of me if I squared up to him.

  I spend the rest of the night searching for fellow survivors but find none. The streets are deserted. I shout as I go and bang on the doors of houses but nobody answers. It’s start-ing to worry me. I surely can’t be the only survivor, not in a city this size, but there probably aren’t a lot of us. It might take days, weeks before I find anybody. I don’t want to spend all that time alone, not after the solitude of the cage.

  I spy a troop of wolfers tracking a herd of lykans and hurry after them. “Hi, I’m Newman Riplan,” I introduce myself when I catch up. “You guys don’t mind if I tag along, do you? Only I can’t find anyone else and I –”

  “Sorry, sir,” their leader says, “but we can’t be responsible for civilians.”

  “But you’re the only people I can find,” I whine.

  “Sorry,” he says again, “but we don’t have time. We’re normally wrapping things up by this stage of the hunt, but because there were so many lykans, we aren’t even halfway through. You’d slow us down and we can’t have that.”

  “Let me trail along behind,” I say. “If you get into trouble, I can back you up.”

  “No,” he says politely but firmly.

  “Listen, shitface,” I growl, “I know the Alchemist. We’re buddies. He won’t take kindly to the news if I tell him I asked for help and you turned me down. He’ll hand you your head on a plate if I say the word, so if you don’t –”

  The leader turns swiftly and, with the butt of his sword, slams the side of my head. It’s either a perfectly landed blow or a lucky one, but it works a treat and I’m two-thirds down the road to unconsciousness by the time I hit the ground.

  SEVENTEEN

  The streets are deserted when I come to. No lykans, no wolfers, no people. There aren’t even drones, though I find some round the bend as I set out to explore, standing in a motionless little group, looking more than ever like showroom mannequins.

  I wander the streets for hours, calling for help, seeking others who survived the prolonged massacre, but no one answers. I knock on doors, check inside factories, pop into nourishment houses, but all are devoid of life.

  The bodies of the dead have been removed from the streets, except those inside glass cages, which the sandmen have left intact. I don’t want to get too close to these reminders of my cannibalism, but have to check to make sure the people in the cages are dead.

  They are.

  Most let themselves starve, though a few slit their own throats or choked on their nooses, each of them nobler and braver than me, more human in the end than I was, despite all the time I’ve spent here claiming to be the advanced one.

  There aren’t many glass cages. I come across only five during my hours of searching. An ill omen, though I try not to dwell on it.

  Two days and not a sign of life anywhere. Even the animals have disappeared. I haven’t bothered dressing or eating, though I have stopped to lower my face into a canal every so often, to stave off thirst.

  The enemaists seem to have gone down with everybody else aboard ship, so I piss against walls or into canals. But I can’t bring myself to shit out in the open. Even after all I’ve done, that just feels wrong. So when I have to pass a stool – and that’s much easier now that I’m drinking properly – I enter a building, find a dark room, and do my business in a corner, using old scraps of clothes that I pick up while walking to wipe myself clean.

  I refuse to believe that I’m the only survivor, though that’s what I feel in my gut. A whole city can’t have been wiped out, not even one as bizarre as this. I’ve no idea how big it is, but from my failed escape attempt I know it’s huge, home to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. All those inhabitants can’t have perished. It’s ludicrous to think that I alone had enough savvy to pull through the ordeal. There must be others. Finding them is surely just a matter of time.

  And yet these people are (were?) different. Maybe their will to survive is (was?) less than that of people from my world. They may have simply rolled over and died, the lot of them, like lemmings.

  There’s also the enigma of Barbersville. I was well into my trek before I reached that part of the city on foot, yet in a public car it was a short trip. Geography doesn’t work here the way it does on Earth. Maybe the city somehow wraps on itself and isn’t actually that big a place, home to mere thousands rather than millions. In that case annihilation wouldn’t be such an improbability.

  But even if my fears prove to be accurate and the general populace has been wiped out, what about the sandmen, wolfers and baggers? They were still around when the flood of lykans broke. They must be alive, waiting for the next cycle, holed up somewhere safe. But how to find them? How?

  I light huge bonfires that are visible from kilometres around. It’s not as easy as I thought it would be, but after a few failed attempts I work out how to encourage them into wild, flaming life. I stack drones inside a building and set fire to a couple of them. The fire spreads through the waxy dummies, then to the walls of the building and its neighbours – the safety measures here are appalling – and soon there’s a blaze burning that would give the bravest of firemen nightmares.

  I was nearly trapped by the fast-moving flames a couple of times, but now, after much experimenting, I have the process down to a tee. I know exactly how quickly a fire will spread, how to stack the drones and which direction to take when making my dash for safety.

  But fierce and bright as the fires are, nobody comes to investigate. No survivors straggle in, weeping for joy, falling into my arms to share their tales of woe. No sandmen or wolfers roll by to berate me for my destructive behaviour. The Alchemist doesn’t track me down and say how pleased he is to see me. I might as well be flicking lit matches into an ocean for all the good my pyres are doing.

  I continue lighting fires, but only sporadically, and nothing too elaborate. I don’t want to waste time arranging drones and dodging flames when I could be out searching for humans.

  After an especially nasty dream – in which I was chased by hundreds of drones with Cheryl’s features – I awake one morning and suddenly remember where I was heading when the sun changed. The enemaist factory and the pipes underground. I should forget about survivors — eve
n if some exist, so what? My whole plan had been to get away from this city and its people. That’s what I should focus on. If I can find the factory and discover a way out…

  It’s easier said than done. This city’s full of factories, one pretty much the same as the other, most unlabelled. A public car driver would have had me there in a matter of minutes but they perished along with everyone else. Their cars remain, dotting the roads like the evacuated shells of giant, metal snails, but what good are the chariots without the charioteers?

  I search high and low for the fabled factory but no luck so far. If I ever find it, I’ll take drones down the pipes with me, eat them for nourishment, set them on fire for light, send them ahead if the way looks dangerous. I’ve been thinking a lot about drones, wondering how to get the best out of them. I’ve been writing notes, pinning them to various mannequins and ordering them to roam the city at will. The notes probably won’t lead to anything – even if one is discovered by a human, I doubt if he or she would be able to find me – but it’s better than leaving the blank-faced dummies hanging about on the streets like inert zombies waiting for a scent of blood in the air.

  Cheryl. Franz. Kipp. Isaac. They’re all dead. It only hits me occasionally, usually at night. The rest of the time I don’t think about it. I concentrate on the search, on marshalling drones, leaving clues and pointers so that others might find me. Then, out of nowhere, the knowledge of all that has been lost will hit and I’ll sink to my knees, sobbing. Often it’ll be hours before I can rise again.