by Tim Curran
Hunger set in and her mind began to move with entirely new rhythms, phobias were amplified. What had been a matter of obsession before became a compulsive paranoia that led to full-fledged horror.
I warned them and I warned them and I warned them, Emma thought as she scrubbed her hands again and again with pink antibacterial soap in the upstairs bedroom of their house. The germs are everywhere. Always carry hand sanitizer, always wash your hands. It’s what you don’t see that will kill you.
But they didn’t listen.
And that led them to this.
“The meat,” she said under her breath. “Oh God, the meat.”
She craved it, lusted for it, but at the same time in the twisted corridors of her brain she knew the meat had caused all this trouble. She shivered as she thought of it. How they had eaten it. Shoved juicy raw hunks of it into their mouths. Handled it. Never washing their hands. Now the germs were everywhere. She could sense them all around her, creeping and crawling and infesting. The house was like a Petri dish. It was disgusting, disgusting.
“Mama,” she heard a voice say from the closet. “I’m hungry. I’m so hungry.”
It was Madison. She’d always been the big eater. She was starving as they were all starving. Hannah didn’t complain as much as her big sister, but the brown circles under her eyes and hollowed cheeks were evident of what was happening.
“I know you’re hungry,” she called out to them. “But we’ll have to wait.”
Having them locked in the bathroom closet gave her a certain sense of control, of containment. This way she could take the girls out one by one and wash them and sanitize them. The only meat left was downstairs, but that’s where Donny was. And Donny was no longer human. The idea of him touching Emma or her girls was a terror beyond contemplation.
She was certain he had eaten the rest of the meat and there was nothing else down there. They’d cleaned out all the bad stuff earlier in the day and now the cupboards were empty. What was in her demanded that she eat the meat and nothing else but the meat. Unfortunately, there was none to be had.
And you can’t touch it! her inner germaphobe warned. By God, you don’t dare touch it! You know what it’s done to Donny. Do you want to be like that? Do you want the girls to be like that?
No, no, no, she had to force it from her mind.
They would find something to eat. Maybe later. Maybe after the sun went down. Then maybe they could sneak away and eat. But not now. They didn’t dare go downstairs. The sunlight was streaming through the windows and it should have sent something like him scurrying for a dark place, but so far it hadn’t.
Now and again, she could hear him moving around, bumping into the walls. He was clumsy. His brain was stewed on the meat and his body…well, she didn’t even want to think about that.
Emma dried her hands.
Like the rest of her body, they were pink from being scrubbed repeatedly. But cleanliness was definitely next to godliness.
Fuck godliness, she thought, cleanliness is all that matters and anybody sane knows it!
She went to her bedroom and over to the window, approaching them carefully. She did not trust her neighbors. Who could say what nefarious activities they were up to? About three feet from the window, she went down on her knees (something she wasn’t happy about because there was carpeting, thick shag carpeting, and everyone knew how carpets attracted germs) and crept up to the sill.
They might be watching. Be careful. Don’t tip your hand.
Yes, yes. She parted the curtains but a few inches, wondering when the last time they’d had a good washing, and peered out into the deceptively quiet world of Birch Street. Nothing seemed out of place and yet she knew it was. All the garbage bins were at the curb. Nearby were late-model SUVs and sedans. Sprinklers on timers swished back and forth. Fine and fine. Everything seemed normal, but her practiced eye knew better. Ever since the fall of meat yesterday, everyone had changed. She had changed, too, but her mind refused to accept any culpability on her part. Already, the lawns looked overgrown, hedges shaggy, flowerbeds in need of weeding. There were stray bits of trash blowing through yards. And look at Mr. Hammerberg’s storm fence! He was always so meticulous about it, but now there was garbage plastered to it by the wind—dirty paper plates, a cast-off page from a newspaper, some fast food wrappers.
But he didn’t care about things like that anymore.
He cared only about the meat.
It was his personal savior and his reason for being. It tempted him like the snake in Eden and he ate it, filled himself with it, and having done so, now could no longer fill himself with anything else.
Emma shook her head.
I know better now, she thought. I will not let the meat own me. I refuse. It does not control me.
But even as she thought this, the hunger sent knives into her lower abdomen that made her double over with an exquisite agony. She lay there on the carpet, gasping and gagging, a thin pink saliva running down her chin.
It seemed like all the shadows created by the waning late afternoon sunlight were converging on her, sliding out from under the bed like the blackest of mambas, oozing from the corners and behind the dresser and from the ajar closet door in writhing nests of midnight worms that sought her out and enveloped her. She tried to fight, but it was no good. They were winding her up and she was helpless against them. Her mouth was filled with the bitter, coppery taste of blood. In her chest, her heart pounded with an off-key mechanical rattle like the gears of a clock that was winding down, preparing to seize up with age and lack of attention.
As her body was wracked with spasms, a broken voice in her mind kept saying, It’s germs, it’s germs, they invaded you, they’ve taken you over, but then it stopped and she was not sure of anything beyond the pangs of hunger that threaded through her. The air in the room was foul-smelling with a dark, earthen dankness that her imagination associated with subterranean vaults.
“The meat,” she heard her voice say, but low and scratching and nearly airless the way she imagined her voice would sound in her 90th year. “The meat…must…must have the meat…”
Though her voice talked of the meat, her mind translated it into delicate heaps of fluffy yellow scrambled eggs and crisp strips of salty bacon and pancakes glistening with maple syrup. It showed her slabs of rare beef and platters of golden fried chicken, blocks of sharp cheddar cheese and plates of pickles, baked potatoes oozing with sour cream and loafs of freshly-baked bread. It taunted her with smoked sausages and fresh green vegetables, fruits and candies, jams and jellies, chocolate layer cakes and blueberry pies slathered with whipped cream.
The drool ran from her mouth in copious amounts, her lips smacking, her jaws needing to bite. She contorted and shuddered. The food, the food, the beautiful food. She would have crawled through sewage and filth to get to it. She would have chewed stale crumbs from beneath tables and licked droplets of spilled sauces off linoleum floors. She would have picked hairs from strips of fat, blown dust from half-eaten crackers, and scraped mildew from rotting meat. Anything, anything, anything to fill that horrendous bottomless hollow deep inside her.
Her mind had not been her own since she tasted the meat and everything had been turned inside out and around and around, but now it was really gone. Completely reinvented by the deranged imperatives of hunger that were beyond anything she had known. Her thoughts were bats winging through the darkness of a belfry. They pushed her forward, owned her, and disciplined her towards a single end like the snapping of a bullwhip.
On her belly, she snaked across the floor, teeth gnashing, hunger stabbing at her vitals. She would have food. She would find food. Nothing could keep her from the food. Though she did not think, The meat, the meat, she wanted nothing else. With a trembling claw, she opened the bedroom door and skidded naked out into the hallway, breathing hard, making a low, coarse growl in her throat.
She reached the stairs, cocked her head to listen for enemies.
She froze there, hand reaching down the steps towards the meat she craved.
Who?
Yes, a sound. She heard it and then heard it again. It was coming from the other end of the hallway where the spare bedroom was located. It was sort of a slippery, wet sound.
She crept back into the hallway, staying close to the doorway of her lair. The sound was closer now. Whoever made it was definitely in the spare bedroom. She watched, grimacing, as the door slowly swung open. It was dark in there, shades drawn. She smelled a hot fungal odor waft down the corridor.
“Emma?” she heard a voice say from the darkness. “Is…is that you?”
Though she was very much out of her head in every conceivable way, she sensed danger. It was like the tread of a spider right down her spine. The taste of the plentiful saliva in her mouth went from being sweet to the vinegary sourness of fear.
She saw a hand clamber around the door frame. It was puffy and soft and left a smeared black trail of slime as it slid down the wall.
Choking on a desperate cry in her throat, Emma crept back into her bedroom. Enough of her functioning mind still existed for her to lock the door. Curled up on the floor, nibbling her fingers, she listened as Donny came down the hallway with a slithering sort of sound. He went right to the door of the bathroom.
The kids were in there and he knew it.
17
When Bria finally returned home after an hour or so of walking and thinking and unsuccessfully calling and texting Aiden, she entered the house cautiously through the back way from the alley. The neighborhood was still suspiciously silent.
As she came into the kitchen, she stopped and waited there, listening for signs of life and not hearing any. Mother Alice was seriously starting to freak her out, so she wanted to know, if possible, where she was. But the house was quiet as a tomb. There was nothing but the ticking of an anniversary clock on the mantle in the living room.
The sound of her own breathing seemed loud. She stepped across the floor, avoiding a spot that she knew creaked, and stopped by the counter. Though she was nervous and her belly had a light, fluttery feel to it, she was hungry. A little snack was all she wanted. A piece of fruit, a couple crackers. She hadn’t been eating much since her return; her appetite was gone. Even now, the idea of food made her nauseous. Hungry, then nauseous.
I can eat, she thought. If I want to, I can eat.
This was what she told herself, but deep inside she did not believe it. There were memories associated with eating, and she did not like them. So she forced them out of her head the way they had taught her at the Dark Castle. Only Bad Girls had memories like that, and Bad Girls had to be kept locked in boxes.
There was a sudden peal of discordant noise in her head that nearly made her cry out. But it was only her phone buzzing in her back pocket. That’s what it had to be.
“Simmer down,” she said very quietly.
Aiden: hey lil sis u there??
Bria sighed angrily in her throat. The moron. She’d been trying to contact him all day since their five-minute chat this morning.
Briacom: so u finally realized i’m alive?
Aiden: ha my sis so funny everyone sez so.
Briacom: more sht goin on. need to c u. plz. this is no BULLSHT. can u pencil me in??? i know hipsters like u are so so busy and all.
Aiden: how about 6:30 ish? eh? can u be here then w/out yr saucy mouth, yo?
Briacom: i’ll be there. c u then. L8r.
Generally, she would have kept texting because it was one of those things she enjoyed doing. But just the sound of her thumbnail on the keys seemed unbearably loud in the stillness of the kitchen. It bothered her in ways she was not willing to admit. It was as if she did not want anyone to hear her.
She stood there, listening for Alice. Listening for anything. But all was quiet. She relaxed a bit. She was looking forward to seeing her brother, but at the same time more than a little apprehensive about it. Would he think she was nuts when she began telling him about all the weirdness of Birch Street? She hoped not. Yet, she wouldn’t have blamed him a bit. Okay. Enough. She wasn’t going to think about it anymore.
She opened the fridge, thinking that just an apple would be fine.
But there were no apples.
In fact, there wasn’t anything. It was empty. Even emptier than the fridges of people she knew back at school. At least those had some beer or a jar of mustard in them. But Alice’s was completely cleaned out.
Bria stood there, shaking her head just slightly because this made no sense. This made no sense at all. No fruit or veggies in the crisper. No lunchmeat or cheese. No salad dressing. No condiments. Not so much as a jar of pickles or a gallon of milk or a stick of butter. It was completely emptied out. Same went for the freezer. No ice cream or frozen waffles or pizza or cans of orange juice. Nada.
She felt a chill break out over her arms and it had nothing to do with Alice’s central air. Of all the things she had seen so far, this really scared her.
Okay, there’s got to be a logical reason for this, right? You know Alice. She’s a clean freak. Maybe she just decided it was time to clean everything out.
Or maybe there’s a larger, darker meaning to this, and I bet you know what it is.
She knew and she did not know at all. She went to the cupboards. They were empty, too. No mac ‘n’ cheese, soup, crackers, or even a lone can of creamed corn. It was all gone. Oh, the plates and bowls and glasses were still evident in the other cupboards, plenty of things to eat off of and drink from but nothing to put on them or pour into them.
She checked the spice rack…every single jar was there, but they had all been emptied out. She knew right then that she could have searched the entire house and she would not have found so much as an envelope of Cup-a-Soup or a shaker of salt.
“Pretty weird, isn’t it?” a voice behind her said.
And by that point, Bria was so worked up she nearly screamed. But it was only Sady, of course. She stood there, a cocky and knowing half-grin on her lips. She wore one of Bria’s old shirts, the fashionably ripped black My Chemical Romance tee that read, I’M NOT OKAY.
“Nice shirt,” Bria told her. “Are you going emo on me?”
“Maybe.”
“Are you into MCR?”
Sady looked around the kitchen as if it was her first time there. “I’m into all kinds of things.” She held a juicy cheeseburger in one hand. She sniffed itwhich made Bria smile, because at her age, she’d been a sniffer, tooand nibbled on it. “What do you think of Alice’s house cleaning? Do you approve?”
“I don’t know what to think of it.”
“It’s weird.”
“What’s it about?”
Sady shrugged. “Who knows what goes on in her mind.”
“Where did you get that?” Bria asked her.
“I have my sources.”
Typical vague Sady.
The smell of the cheeseburger was blatantly intoxicating. Bria’s mouth watered. The bun was golden-brown, well-toasted, the meat glistening with juice, melted cheese oozing down it. She could see the mustard and ketchup, the rings of onion and pickles poking out.
Sady held it out to her. “Want a bite?”
Grease ran from it down Sady’s forearm and Bria had a mad desire to grab the cheeseburger and run.
“No, I’m okay.”
Sady smiled. “You don’t look okay. In fact, you don’t look okay at all.”
Bria just ignored that because Sady had a habit of picking at you (much like Alice) and you didn’t dare give her an opening.
Sady shrugged and took a bite from the cheeseburger. The ketchup was like blood on her lips. Meat juices trickled down her chin.
“When did she do this?”
“Probably when you were out. I don’t know. I didn’t watch her. I keep my distance.”
Sady bit into the burger again, chomping it in her jaws. There was mustard on her mouth now, a bit of ke
tchup spattered onto one cheek. If she was aware of the fact, it didn’t seem to bother her. She kept eating, making crude slobbering sounds. She chewed and licked the grease from her fingers.
She’s taunting me, Bria thought. She’s taunting me with that goddamn burger because she knows there’s not so much as a crumb in the house.
“You should really have a bite,” Sady said, chewing with an open mouth as she spoke. “It’s really good. And there isn’t anything else to eat. Not around here. Not unless you want to take Mr. Hammerberg up on his offer.”
“I’m fine.”
“Of course you are.”
Sady kept biting into the burger, hitting it the way a shark hits raw meat in the water, with lightning-fast strikes. She was stuffing more and more food into her mouth. Her cheeks were bulging. Mustard and ketchup and grease were all over her mouth and chin. Bits of burger and onion dropped from her lips. She was acting like a starved animal, like a…a pig.
Bria went over to the window just to get away from her. By then, of course, she knew.
She knew what everyone in the neighborhood had been cleaning out of their houses, why they had to get all that garbage out to the cans. Her mouth dry, her heart beating with a papery rustle, she went into the living room and stepped out onto the front porch. She eyed the rows of army-green waste containers lined up at the curbs. They were all full. Most of the lids wouldn’t even shut. She saw bags heaped around many of them, these from families (no doubt) that had well-stocked larders.
Don’t, Bria, she warned herself. Don’t do what you’re thinking. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
But at that moment, she really didn’t care. She really didn’t care about a lot of things. She went out to the curb and looked in Alice’s bin. Yup. It was full. Everything from dry goods to canned soup to fresh meat. And heaped over the top of it, a combined dusting of spices. The smell was pungent.