The Hunger Read online

  He looked around the woods again, looked at the murky pond in the distance, completely unattended-to. Maybe he would go to the police. But prison—fuck. He couldn’t go to prison. He was innocent here. He hadn’t done this. He wasn’t like this—it was the thing inside him. It had possessed him. Taken him over. He couldn’t pay for the thing he’d been forced into doing. His mum, she’d never forgive herself. She’d think it was her fault, that she’d brought him up wrong or something. He couldn’t put her through that. She’d been through enough.

  He stepped closer to Rebecca’s body. He didn’t want to touch it. He wanted to leave it here and hope it never got found, but that was foolish. His DNA would be all over her. Fuck—his spunk would be inside her. Shit. How horrible of him, anyway. HIV-infected and fucking people without protection. That, he was guilty of. Fuck. What had happened to him? What was going on inside his head?

  He crouched down in front of her. An ant crawled across her bare leg. He lifted one of her legs, keeping his eyes off the rest of her body, and he slipped her underwear and jeans up as well as he could. Then, he pushed her onto her side with all of his strength. She rolled from the support of the tree and landed in a flimsy, heavy mound. Blood and flesh from her neck scraped off onto the tree bark.

  He looked up ahead. The pond. Nobody used it for anything, did they? It was a boggy waste site, bike tyres peeking out of the depths below, invisible because of all the shit in the water. It would be the perfect place. Well, not perfect, but fuck—he wasn’t a killer. What was he supposed to do? He tried to think back to all the TV shows he’d watched. “Breaking Bad”, they’d used acid to dispose of a body, but like fuck could he just get hold of a load of acid. He could burn her. No. Fuck. How was he even thinking these thoughts? How could his already miserable life sink to these new depths all of a sudden?

  He took a few deep breaths and rubbed his bloody hands through his greasy, matted hair, then he looked at Rebecca’s body. Poor girl. She’d been so nice to him whenever he’d met her. In the end, too nice, it seemed.

  He crouched down and grabbed her feet. He tried to drag her down to the pond this way, but her arms stuck into the ground. He moved to her other side and grabbed her by the armpits and with all his force and might, dragged her down the hill, down towards the pond. He’d dispose of her in there. Tie a few heavy rocks around her feet so she didn’t float back up. Nobody would find her any time soon. And when they did find her, he’d probably—hopefully—have been finished off by the HIV/AIDS completely.

  It took him several minutes to reach the water’s edge. Blood from Rebecca’s neck had spread all over the muddy ground. Shit. He could cover that up, but wouldn’t dogs sniff that out or something? Her parents would come looking. The police, they’d search Anita’s place and Anita would… Shit. She’d tell them Rebecca went off with Jonny. He just had to hope nobody had seen them. He had to hope nobody had even remembered them or he’d be screwed.

  When he reached the water’s edge, he grabbed a few large rocks from the side, doing his best not to slip into the deep, rancid pit of water. When he had them, the problem of how to attach them to Rebecca’s body arrived. He tried to put them in her pockets, but they wouldn’t fit. He tried to stuff them down the front of her jeans, but they wouldn’t stick.

  He looked around. Looked at her and looked at himself and looked at the whole area for something that could help. Somebody had to have ditched something around her. Something he could tie with. A rope, or something like that.

  Or a belt.

  He looked down at his trousers and saw the brown belt. Then he looked at Rebecca’s jeans and saw a thin white belt there.

  Not perfect, but nothing about this situation was fucking perfect.

  He untied his belt, then Rebecca’s, and wrapped them around her stomach. Would that be the best place to tie them to? Would that make her sink? Which part of the body floated the most? Shit. All that time he’d wasted on the Internet these last few months, he could’ve at least done some research. Dead body disposal—a Google search he wished he’d opted for.

  In the end, he plumped for the waist. He tied four large rocks around her stomach, and felt her loose stomach give way as the two rocks weighed down on her. As it did, a rancid smell drenched the area. He gagged, then got behind Rebecca, ready to push her in. The pond reeked of sewage and waste as it was. That could work in his favour should anyone come down here, but he didn’t want to take his chances.

  He lifted her by her arms again, her body even heavier with the rocks around her waist. He propped her at the side of the slope that led into the deep, bottomless pit of water. He stared down into the murky brown below. He had to pray she’d sink. If she didn’t, he was fucked. He could just picture her body floating back up to the surface. He could picture himself being forced to jump in and drag her down; wedge her underneath some loose metal or whatever else was under there. He couldn’t go swimming in that bog. No way would he be able to get home without raising suspicion. It was going to be hard enough as it was. He had to hope. He had to pray.

  He held his breath and edged her body further over the water, like a twisted reverse on the iconic scene from “Titanic”, and then he let go.

  She dropped, lifeless and limp, down the slope and into the bog below. Murky water, untouched in years, splashed to life around her, wrapped around her, swallowed her.

  Jonny clenched his teeth and watched. Watched as the water coated her. Watched as it enveloped her in nothingness. He waited for her to float back up. Waited for a glimpse of her muddy blonde hair or her brown-stained white shirt. Waited as the water rippled, then settled.

  And still, nothing.

  He stumbled backwards. Fell onto the side of the murky pond and kept on staring down, just in case.

  She was gone, and she wasn’t floating back up.

  He’d done it.

  He sat and stared up at the tree-lined sky for a few moments, listening to the traffic in the distance, listening to the birds in the trees. He didn’t feel relieved. That would be psychopathic, or whatever. But he’d succeeded at stage one. He’d handled the first step of the situation. Now he just had to go back, clear up what he could, go home and wash himself. Then he’d come back here and clear his tracks. Anita, Brad, the others—he needed to speak to them. Find out what they knew. Rebecca’s parents.

  His stomach sank.

  Rebecca’s parents. They’d find out their daughter was missing. They’d find out, and even if they never found out it was Jonny, it was him. That was the truth. Yes, he knew in his mind that it was the thing inside him, but that wouldn’t stand up in court. That wouldn’t absolve him of his guilt.

  He lifted himself up and walked back up the hill, back towards the area where the trees thinned out, back to where It happened. He looked at the tree. He could see blood on it, as well as blood on the ground underneath. He kicked dirt over the blood on the ground. He’d have to do some research before he dealt with that. He had to think rationally here. And even though he was shaking and every thought made him nauseous, he was doing a good job. Shock? Perhaps.

  He turned away from the pond, from the trees, and headed back up towards the road. Now came the problem of getting home coated in mud and specks of blood without drawing much attention.

  As he reached the edge of the woods, he felt a vibrating in his pocket. He pulled out his phone. When he saw the screen, his stomach sank even further.

  Anita.

  He took a deep breath in and hit the answer icon.

  “Hello?”

  “Jonny,” Anita said. Her voice was shaky and mumbly. “Have you… Last night. When you went off with Rebecca. Do you know where she got to?”

  Jonny paused. His heart pounded right through his body. “Why?”

  “She was supposed to be having a… Jonny, she was supposed to be having a pregnancy checkup this afternoon and—and I said I’d take her down to the hospital. I’m really worried about her, Jonny. She wouldn’t miss this. I swear s
he barely even drank last night. It’s not like her.”

  Jonny froze. His mind froze. His body froze. Everything froze around him.

  “I think… I think…”

  But he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say anything.

  He put the phone down.

  Rebecca was pregnant.

  He ran down the hill again and puked out the contents of his stomach into a bush.

  It didn’t stop the hunger from growing…

  17.

  And then they were gone again and Donna was on her own.

  The day—or whatever it was; it was easier than ever to lose track of time in here—went pretty much like this on and on. She’d lie there with an intense emptiness at the pit of her stomach, trying her best not to bite right through her tongue. Then Doctor Ermenstein would come into the room, stick a needle in her, give her something to eat, all while remaining silent. And then he’d go and she’d wait again for however long and it would all happen again, and again and again.

  She’d shat herself at some point. She hadn’t realised until Doctor Ermenstein removed her underwear and the rancid smell rose through the room. She was losing sense of her body. She felt like a starving, malnourished child, like one you’d see on a Comic Relief advertisement. But she was getting enough to eat, so it didn’t make sense. Not at all.

  She’d lashed out at the security guard, Adam. Taken a chunk right out of his neck and killed him, they said. A mad rage. Doctor Ermenstein and Mr. Belmont, they called it a “violence.” A by-product of this supposed miracle drug running through her system. If only they could get themselves on this drug, they’d realise it was far from a miracle. If only they could feel it. The emptiness.

  The hunger.

  She closed her eyes and thought about her rights. Surely they had no right to keep her in here like this. Surely they were breaking the law—breaking human rights laws. But then again, she was infected. She was quarantined. The more she thought about it, the more she figured Mr. Belmont had managed to get some sort of government approval for her restraint after all. She’d… she’d bitten a chunk out of a guy’s neck, for God’s sakes. Maybe they were helping her out. Was this any better or any worse than prison?

  All the talk of CD4 and CD8. It was like something out a science-fiction movie. And yet, what an asset she could be to TCorps after all. Mr. Belmont had warned her and insisted on her making some serious moves to get the company profits back on track.

  She hadn’t been expecting to be the lab rat.

  She opened her eyes again and tried to turn to one side. She was losing the ability to speak. Her throat was drying up. And her stomach, it just kept on rumbling and rumbling. Crazy. She must’ve eaten recently. Doctor Ermenstein had brought her some bacon and eggs and fed them to her not long ago, but it didn’t feel like it. Why was she so hungry?

  The blood dripping from Adam’s neck. The metallic taste in her mouth.

  Her stomach churned.

  Dread washed over her. This hunger… the more she thought about it, the more it seemed related to the sight of human flesh and blood. In fact, the taste of her tongue. It was more like a rare piece of steak than anything, bloody and rich, just how she liked it. This “violence.” She knew what it was now. The CD4 cells needed feeding in order to turn into CD8. The longer she resisted, the more intense the hunger grew. The blood from her own tongue. It was good, but only for so long.

  The curtain flicked aside. Doctor Ermenstein again. Only this time, Mr. Belmont was back too. He smiled at Donna, a kind of sympathetic smile that people exchanged at funerals. She glared back at him.

  The vein on the side of his neck, green and succulent, blood pouring through it.

  The slight pinkishness of his skin.

  Tender.

  “Mrs. Carter,” Doctor Ermenstein said. He looked at a screen beside her and jotted down a few readings. “I would ask how you’re feeling, but I’d imagine you’re struggling to speak, still.”

  Donna stared at Doctor Ermenstein. His bald head. Smooth. Tender. So close.

  Doctor Ermenstein didn’t look her in the eye. He had something in a bag in front of him. Something small. Meaty. Bloody.

  “We’ve got something for you to try,” he said. “Something that will hopefully help with this… this weakness. This weakness you’re feeling.”

  He exchanged a nervous glance with Mr. Belmont, then reached into the bag with his white-gloved hands.

  “Just keep still,” he said, moving towards her with the piece of meat. “Just… just open your mouth. Please.” He dangled the meat in her direction. She felt her neck lurching forward, her tastebuds on fire with her desire for this meat. The hunger flared up. It burned right through her body as she tugged at the belts, stretching them as much as she could, digging them into her wrists, shaking from side to side.

  Then Doctor Ermenstein threw the meat at Donna. She caught it in her mouth, chewed at it, let the juicy, succulent flavours swim around her mouth. It was so good. Like nothing she’d ever tasted before and yet so familiar. So… right. She could feel the hunger receding as she swallowed the first bite. She could feel the strength returning to her body; her throat clearing up as she swallowed it all down.

  A wave of relaxation spread through her as she licked her lips and leaned back against the pillow in pure orgasmic bliss. She barely even flinched at the nip on her arm.

  “Stay comfortable, Mrs. Carter,” Doctor Ermenstein said, as he walked out of the curtain and out of the room with Mr. Belmont, out of sight.

  “So it’s true, then.”

  Mr. Belmont stared through the one-way reflective glass window at Donna Carter. This shit was just crazy. He’d come to work expecting a normal day of cleaning up after everyone, maybe a trip to the gym after wolfing down a McDonalds at lunch. Back home, hire in an escort, watch some porn—whatever.

  But this… this was insane.

  Doctor Ermenstein was looking at a page of results. Results from the CD4 and CD8 scans—something that the advanced technology at TCorps allowed for.

  “You saw the way she reacted to that meat,” Doctor Ermenstein said, staring at the results. “This only goes to confirm things.”

  “She practically squirted, she looked that hot about it. Revolting, that’s what it is.”

  “Perhaps so,” Doctor Ermenstein said. He folded the paper and stuffed it in his white pocket. He’d removed his face mask, revealing his unshaven beard and his deep-set eyes. “The fact is, her CD4 counts skyrocketed right up until the point we gave her that… that sample. Then over 70% of those cells actually converted—converted—to CD8 fighter cells. It’s… it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It’s magic.”

  Mr. Belmont stared through the glass at Mrs. Carter. Her eyes were still closed, and had been for a good twenty to thirty minutes now, but she was definitely awake. He could tell from the way she tickled her palms with her fingertips; the way her smile kept on growing, as she rocked from side to side. He was getting a little hard watching it, in truth. Pity it took a piece of human flesh to get her that way.

  “So this formula. ‘Turnstone.’ It relies on human flesh to work?”

  Doctor Ermenstein tilted his head from side to side. “Sort of. The consumption of human flesh, or blood—I’m not sure. Maybe even something in the human body. Something unique. But the fact is, we can deal with it. We can pinpoint exactly what it is the CD4—”

  “In Idiot’s Terms, please.”

  Doctor Ermenstein stopped and frowned at Mr. Belmont. “Okay. I’ll make it very simple for you. If we can find a way to feed the Turnstone-infected person, we have an actual miracle drug on our hands. A way that does not include feeding them actual flesh. Now I imagine it will be possible. It must be a craving for a particular part of the human makeup. And that’s something we have to research. I tell you what, though. It would help if we could get the scientist who created this formula here. They might be able to shed some light on it. Otherwise—and I hate to say this—but
we’ve just got a very hungry woman stuck in a Quarantine Zone for life so she doesn’t go mad and eat anybody else.”

  Mr. Belmont considered Doctor Ermenstein’s words. A real-life miracle drug. Just imagine it. A drug that was designed to cure HIV/AIDS but is more akin to an elixir of life. Just as long as they sold it with some kind of synthetic nourishment—something else that TCorps could make big profits on—they would be responsible for the biggest discovery in human history. People would talk about life before Turnstone and life after Turnstone, and all that time, Mr. Belmont’s TCorps would be at the centre of the adulation.

  And sure, some numb-nuts in the press would argue that humanity wasn’t ready for Turnstone. They’d face criticism and hate. But fuck—humanity is never ready for anything. There would be accidents and bad press, no doubt about that. But the important thing they had on their side was time. The only human infected with Turnstone was right here, strapped down in a government-funded quarantine. As long as she was in here, they could be patient in their search for the perfect solution—the perfect distribution method for Turnstone and its nourishment. They could be as patient as required.

  “I’ll call Miss Appleton,” Mr. Belmont said. Didn’t really enjoy the thought of bringing her back after being forced to approve her suspension, but the woman was clearly a genius. Accidental or intentional, that was a matter of opinion. “I believe she’ll be able to help us with—”

  “Doctor, I need you over here right now.”

  Footsteps rattled down the corridor. Mr. Belmont and Doctor Ermenstein turned around and saw Doctor Harvey running from his duty examining the dead Adam, the unfortunate ravaged security guard. His cheeks were red. His eyes were wide and filled with fear.

  “What is it, Harvey?” Doctor Ermenstein asked.

  It was then that Mr. Belmont noticed the blood. Doctor Harvey was clenching his wrist as blood oozed out of it onto the white tiled floor below.

  “Harvey? What the fuck is—”