The Hunger Read online

  “Stuart, you need to—”

  “I slept with that woman you spoke to.”

  A pause in the room. Complete silence.

  “I slept with her, and then she… she said she had something. She works at TCorps, she said, and she’s been working on some… She’s been working on an HIV cure. She wanted to test it out on Jonny. I met her with Jonny to discuss trials and I… I think she’s spiked him, Denise.”

  Denise gawped at Stuart. Her mouth was wide open. Her eyes were focused.“What… You… What?”

  “I’m sorry,” Stuart said. He rose to his feet and walked over to her even though hugging her was the last thing on earth he wanted to do right now. “I’m sorry for being unfaithful. I’ve—I’ve been fucking wracked with guilt. I was going to tell you. I wasn’t going to see her again. But—but she told me about this cure—these trials—and I just wanted to do the right thing. For Jonny. For us.”

  He lifted his arm to wrap around Denise’s back, but before he could, a sharp crack smacked him across the face.

  “You did that. You… You did that, without me knowing. Behind my back.” Denise spat at him and smacked him repeatedly, like a rabid dog free of its leash. “Behind my back. Without me knowing. You—you did that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Stuart shouted, letting his wife hit him. “I never meant for it to happen. She… I guess I’d just had a bad day and I—”

  “Not her, you cheating, lying toe-rag. Our son. You—you agreed to that without me knowing. Without my consent.”

  Denise’s words took Stuart by surprise. So she was more bothered about him helping out their son than his “one-off affair.” Charming. “I did it for Jonny. I did it because I wanted to save his life. I wanted to save—”

  “Save his life? Stuart, have you seen these fucking medical trials before? They’re dangerous. They’re—”

  “She promised me it would be safe. But besides, I didn’t even agree to it. She… I think she spiked him. Without me knowing, I think she spiked him.”

  “Safe. So safe that she’s calling you now and demanding Jonny stay in his room? So safe that—that Jonny is gone. That my Jonny has packed his bags and just—just disappeared. Why would he do that? Why would he—”

  The sound of the doorbell cut through their voices. Stuart and Denise stared at one another. Denise’s nostrils twitched, like a dragon’s, ready to breathe fire.

  “That could be him,” Stuart said. He stepped around his wife and headed towards the hallway door.

  Stuart felt a tug on his back. “I don’t think so. I’m going to get my son and we’re going to get out of here. We should’ve done it months ago. Your—your cheating, your drinking. I know, Stuart. Don’t think I’m fucking stupid.”

  Stuart was rooted to the spot. So she did know, after all. He’d suspected as much anyway, so it wasn’t too much of a shock. But hearing it in the open—hearing a confirmation of all the bad things he’d done—just rammed the reality home. He was a cheating, lying, drinking, drug-abusing, womanising motherfucker, and his wife wasn’t afraid to tell him now.

  Denise walked towards the door. Her pace increased the closer she got.

  “Don’t leave, D. Please. I promise you, everything I did I did for—”

  “Do not say you did this for the family,” Denise said, turning to face her husband. Her hand was on the door handle. “Do not say that. Do not dare.”

  Then, she lowered the handle and started to open the door.

  “I’ve done some horrible things, D. But I was just scared. Scared, like you. I just… I didn’t know how to deal with it. I didn’t know how to… to handle it. Denise, please.”

  Denise held the door partly open for a few seconds, as if she was taking time to process what her husband was saying. He couldn’t lose her, not now. Fuck—it was in situations like these that he realised how much he actually wanted her. He didn’t hate her. He hated the situation. He hated all of it, every little bit of it.

  She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  The man at the door was not Jonny.

  He was bald and had white stubble. His eyes were glassy, dead, but focused on Denise, and then on him.

  “Can I… Can I help you, sir?” Denise asked.

  The man lifted a syringe out of his pocket and before Stuart could even think about doing anything, the syringe was in his wife’s neck and she was on the floor and the man was in their house.

  He pulled the syringe from Denise’s neck as her eyes closed and her struggling limbs went limp.

  Stuart’s heart pounded. His body seized up. “Wha… Fuck… Fuck you. You fucking—” He sprinted at the man with all his strength, his legs moving free of thought, carrying him towards him.

  But before he could get there, he felt something in his chest, and then in his stomach. A sharp pain. He tried to shout out, but he fell to his knees and smacked his face against the floor, his teeth cracking upon impact.

  He turned over with all his strength. There was something soft beside him. Something soft and warm against his head—Denise. Completely still. Lying on the floor, like him.

  He gripped the area where he felt the sharp pain, and he felt something warm and damp. When he looked at his fingers, he realised he was bleeding.

  The bald man with the black coat sat down beside him. He slipped a gun into his coat and stared at Stuart. “This will be a lot easier if you don’t struggle,” he said.

  He brought the syringe that he’d jabbed into his wife’s neck towards Stuart.

  Stuart tried to splutter, tried to shout out, tried with all his strength to wriggle free of the man and the syringe and his floor, but before he could make any real progress, he felt a sharp sensation prick his neck, the cool liquid seeping through into the throbbing vein.

  The man removed the syringe and rose to his feet. He was blurry now. Stuart couldn’t see his face clearly. Nor then his chest, or his arms, or his legs. Tiredness seeped through him. He just wanted to sleep. He just wanted to curl up next to his wife and sleep.

  And that’s what he was doing. He could feel her beside him, warm and cuddly. A Sunday morning, that’s what it was. A Sunday morning before Jonny’s HIV. Jonny was here too. He was here with them. Here in their arms, back when he was a little kid. Smiling, laughing. Everybody smiling.

  The sharp pain disappeared.

  His heartbeat eased and eased and eased…

  And his vision blacked out completely.

  His Denise. His Jonny.

  Smiling.

  Happy.

  He zipped the black body bag over her face and then they were gone.

  He stood up and looked around the hall area. Looked for a trace of blood—any trace that a struggle had occurred here. A flowery vase on top of the radiator was slightly off centre. He adjusted it with his gloved hands, then wiped it, just to be sure.

  He looked down beside the two black body bags, which were more like large rucksacks than anything. They had Barnville’s Interior Designers written on the side, just like the Range Rover had on the back. He looked for any traces of blood. He was disappointed in himself for being forced into shooting The Man, but he’d been coming at him fast. Two clean shots, one to the chest, one to the abdomen. Enough to kill him in minutes. He could’ve saved the serum in the syringe, but he figured The Man deserved a more peaceful death.

  Not that sentimentality played much of a role in his job.

  He crouched down to inspect the floor. A few patches of blood, but nothing major. He could have somebody over here tomorrow—somebody to clean the place up properly. Doing what he did, he had his contacts. They did the cleaning up, he did the dirty work.

  He stepped over the body bags and ascended the staircase. He hadn’t heard anybody up there, and he’d been informed that his primary subject was on the run, so there was no real need for him to sweep the house.

  Except there was. He was a professional. He couldn’t make any mistakes. Couldn’t afford to slip up.

  He
checked the bathroom, bright and well-lit. Then, he checked the master bedroom. The pink sheets of the bed were perfectly made, never to be slept in again. Neighbours, friends—they wouldn’t know what happened. They’d just assume the whole family took off on holiday.

  A long-term holiday. Good idea. Pack some cases, take some clothes. He’d get his contacts—his “cleaners”—to see to that.

  He peeked inside the final room. The blinds were drawn. The wooden desk, which housed a large Toshiba monitor and a PlayStation 3, was covered in dust. The room had a sweet smell to it. An over-freshness, like too much deodorant had been sprayed to mask the true smell. There was nobody in here, that was for sure.

  Before he left the room, a photograph on the corner of the desk caught his eye. He picked it up with his gloved hands. A photograph of his primary subject with the ginger kid. Arms around one another’s shoulders, beers in hand. Close friends. Less stubble, fresher-faced—taken when they were younger. Long-term friends.

  It was when he went to place the photograph back down that he saw it.

  Numbers. Handwritten, then scribbled out, but not enough to hide them completely. Not from a professional like him. 19.45–21.05. 20.35–22.40. 21.37–23.45.

  He recognised the numbers because he’d boarded this route so often in the past. Departure and arrival times for the Virgin train, Glasgow-London Euston.

  He placed the photograph back on the table, then pulled the door so it was exactly how it was before he’d entered.

  Then, he headed down the stairs and lifted the first of the body bags, being sure to lift from the legs and not from the back.

  He took it outside to the Range Rover, and checked to see the road was still clear.

  A gentle breeze brushed through the street. Televisions continued to flicker behind curtains. He was invisible out here. He was invisible and yet he was so present. So tangible. So real.

  He went back to the house and carried out the other body bag to the Range Rover. When he’d finished up, he went back to close the door of the house, leaving the lights just as they were, leaving everything as it was except for the house keys, which he locked the door with then slipped under a round plant pot beside the door.

  Then, he returned to his Range Rover, got in the driver’s seat, and drove. Out of the cul-de-sac, out of the side road, out onto the main road.

  His work here was done.

  He was everywhere and he was nowhere.

  24.

  Jonny splashed water over his face. When he looked down at the sink in the empty bus station bathroom area, he saw that it was filled with blood.

  Not his blood.

  He looked at himself in the murky mirror. There was colour in his cheeks. The usual bags under his eyes had receded. At a first glance, one would probably say he looked healthy.

  But he knew that wasn’t true. What he’d done to that Cub Scout guardian. What he’d been forced to do by the… the hunger inside him. That wasn’t healthy, mentally or physically.

  And yet, he felt calmer, more composed, and more refreshed than he had in a long, long time.

  He’d managed to flee the pond as soon as he realised what it was he was doing. After feasting on the flesh of the poor, defenceless Cub Scout guardian, sinking his teeth into his neck and letting the blood drip down his throat, a realisation clicked in his head. A realisation of what he was doing. He let the Cub Scout guardian fall into the already blood-red pond, with Rebecca, with the other guardian, and with the boy.

  Then, before anyone got the chance to catch him, he fled.

  He kept his head down and his hood pulled up as he sneaked his way towards the bus station. He figured that he’d just look like another weirdo rather than a bloodthirsty killer. Giving off the weirdo impression was never good, but in this case, it was far superior.

  He wiped his mouth on a piece of blue paper and kept his eyes on himself in the mirror. Fresh. Barely any blood in sight, apart from around the neck of his red hoodie, which was underneath his black coat anyway. He could deal with that. He could handle it.

  He stared into his eyes, and for a frightening split second, he didn’t recognise himself.

  He threw the paper into the waste bin and left the dingy bus station bathroom behind.

  He kept his hood up as he headed through town towards the train station. Even though he’d cleaned up, he didn’t want to draw any attention towards himself. He couldn’t risk bumping into somebody he knew, not now. There would be too many questions. Too much curiosity. Too many things that he didn’t have the answers to. He needed some time alone. Some time to think.

  At least the hunger had receded.

  For now.

  When he got to the train station at the other end of town, he entered through the main door. There were two ticket machines in the corner of the large, damp-smelling entrance area. However, there were six people queueing at one of them, which meant that the other must’ve been out of order. Typical. At the front of the queue, an old man with glasses squinted at the touchscreen and tapped it at a snail’s pace. Jonny looked at his watch. Twenty past eight. Shit. He needed to hurry and get a ticket if he wanted to catch the 8.25 train. He’d left it too late. His… distraction at the pond. It’d held him back somewhat.

  He approached the desk, his hood still up. A fat man who looked a bit like Paul O’Grady eyed him up from behind the glass window.

  “Ticket to London, please,” Jonny said. He avoided eye contact with the man. His heart raced. His hands were clammy.

  “Single or return?”

  Jonny considered the question. Single or return? That was a point. Was he ever going to come back here?

  “Return,” he said. He figured it made more sense and looked less suspicious if he pretended he was coming back at some point.

  Not that this fat Paul O’Grady lookalike would give a shit.

  The man took his time to input the information into his screen. He whistled through a gap in his teeth, rattling the long-nailed fingers of his free hand onto his desk. Jonny looked at his watch. 20.22. Fuck. He had to hurry. He had to get away. Anything could happen in the next hour. He needed to get away while he still could.

  “Okay,” the ticket man said. He popped a bunch of three tickets through the window and frowned at Jonny. “Platform 4. Better get a move on.”

  Jonny grabbed the tickets and jogged towards Platform 4. He could see a Virgin train was already there. It had to be his train. It had to be.

  As he reached the side of the train, the doors to carriage C slammed shut. He stopped outside them. Bashed his hand against the “open” button, but it was no use. Shit. He had to get on there. He couldn’t wait another hour, not under these new circumstances. Not with the Cub Scout guardian and the way they’d get the emergency services involved. He needed this train.

  He kept on thumping his hand against the “open” button, but he was on the verge of defeat. The train’s engines were starting up. He’d missed it. It was over.

  “Hold your horses there, son,” a voice said.

  He looked to his right. It was a tall, lanky man dressed in a blue suit and wearing a hat. On his suit, a Virgin Trains logo was embossed.

  He pushed past Jonny and pressed the “open” button, then spoke into his walkie-talkie. “Si, open up, would you? Got a couple of stragglers hoping to catch a last minute ride. Myself included.” He looked at Jonny and rolled his eyes mockingly.

  After a few moments, the doors hissed, then slid open.

  “After you,” the train attendant said. He smiled at Jonny. Gaunt face. Barely any meat on him.

  Jonny smiled and nodded, then climbed onto the train, his green rucksack over his shoulder. He’d been lucky. So lucky. Now he just had to find a seat, and relax. Find somewhere where he could be alone for a while. Where he could consider his next step.

  As he got on the train, he noticed people standing in the aisle. People were standing in the entrance/exit area, too, blocking the toilet door. Some people were sitt
ing on their bags. It reeked of stale sweat, of fatigue and frustration.

  The doors to the train shut, and Jonny squeezed his way into the crowd of people outside the carriage C door.

  “Don’t stand much of a chance getting a seat in there,” one man said. He was in his mid-thirties, perhaps. Suited. Short, dark hair.

  Jonny sighed and plonked his rucksack onto the floor. At least he’d made it on here. Okay, his “seat” wasn’t ideal, but he was here. He was on the train.

  He waited for the train to move. He waited for it to set off. He listened for the engine. Had something happened? Had somebody seen him? Some CCTV footage leaked from by the pond? Were they coming for him?

  He jolted to the right as the train started to move.

  And he exhaled.

  He was going.

  He was gone.

  If it wasn’t so busy on the 20:25 train to London Euston, he’d have done it already.

  Instead, he found himself standing at the rear end of Coach E. He was stuck in front of the doorway, a mass of people in front of him, a mass of people behind him. Like a stone wedged at the bottom of a glass bottle by a pile of stones, there was no way he was getting through the carriages without a release of pressure elsewhere.

  He’d seen him get on, though. At the last minute—for a moment he thought he was going to have to get off to deal with him there and then, but he’d got on the train at the last minute. Clambered through the door with his green rucksack and his curly, dark hair. He was down in Coach B or C.

  Just two coaches away. Two coaches away from his subject. Two coaches away from his prize.

  As the train picked up in speed, wobbling from side to side, he felt the weight of the gun and the syringe in his pocket hit his chest.

  He knew what he had to do.

  He just had to wait for the perfect moment to do it.

  25.

  After the second stop, this time at Warrington Bank Quays, the train didn’t seem to get any emptier.