Dark Hunger

by Kevin Kneupper

  “I’ll get this thing,” said Cade. “I’m going to make sure it ends up on a shelf in the Vatican basement.”

  “We’ll get this thing,” said Shanna. “She’s Episcopalian. This is our territory now, and we need to be a part of this. I’m sanctioned as an exorcist. I can do my part.”

  “Sure,” said Cade. “If I’m anything, it’s a team player.”

  “Just let me wrap up here, and give her some more support,” said Shanna. “Then we can work on what to do. We don’t even know where it is, and there’s no way to find it until somebody else shows up dead.”

  “We’ll find it,” said Cade. “It can’t quit. It’s out there, probably stuffing its face right now. All we’ve got to do is follow the food.”

  §

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Cade. “Thanks anyway, and appreciate you trying.”

  He hung up his phone, flipped through the pizza section of the yellow pages, and scratched another restaurant’s name off with a pen. Then he ran his fingers down to the next one, and dialed again.

  A woman’s voice answered. “Torrisi’s Pizza, how may I help you?”

  “I’ve got kind of a weird question I was hoping you could help me with,” said Cade. “I’m a high school principal, and I’ve got these students. They like to play pranks. Like ordering pizzas, over and over and over to the same place. They’ve been doing it all over town.”

  “Oh my,” said the woman.

  “I think they stole a credit card,” said Cade. “They’re at someone’s house, and they’ll just keep ordering until the thing’s maxed, and then stick the restaurant with the bill. It could be a boy, could be a girl. But I was just wondering if you could tell me if you’ve seen something like that. Maybe get me an address, so I can go have a little talk with them.”

  “Well, we have,” said the woman. “It’s a man, though. He’s ordering from everywhere, all the time. We send a pizza, and when we get there he’s got three guys trying to deliver at once. But we can’t really give out a customer’s address.”

  “Probably one of their older brothers,” said Cade. “They think this is funny, just a big joke. Maybe ask a manager. I know your boss isn’t going to be happy, when the charges all get cancelled. Tell them I’ll cover it all, if you can just get me an address. I just want to keep the police out of it, if I can. They’re just kids.”

  A few minutes and an angry manager later, and Cade had the address. He closed up the yellow pages, handed it to the nurse who’d lent it to him, and walked down the hallway to the hospital’s exit, alone.

  §

  “Knock knock,” said Cade. “Anyone home?”

  There was no answer, but he hadn’t expected one. All of the lights were off, and it was black inside except for a television’s dim flicker dancing in the living room window. It didn’t look like the sort of place you’d find a demon. It was the picture of suburbia, a stucco box cloned from all the others and plopped onto a plot of land behind a juniper tree and a hedge. Nothing of interest was supposed to be happening here, which just made it the perfect place to hide.

  Cade tried the doorknob. Unlocked; not much of a surprise, either. If the demon was there, it was accepting deliveries, and his arrival would be just one of many.

  The smell hit him as soon as he entered. It was rancid, an aroma that mixed sweetness with rotting meat, oscillating between the disgusting and the delectable. The scenery was familiar: mounds of empty containers and remnants of the creature’s favored pizza flung in every corner. Clothes were scattered everywhere, and the coffee table had been upended, leaving a blanket of magazines covering the floor. The only difference was the couch, occupied this time by a very living man.

  He was huge, bursting at the seams even as he shoveled more inside of him. He was grazing on a bucket of ice cream, sinking into the couch cushions as they struggled under his weight. His hair was mussed and wild, and he’d stripped down to just a pair of gym shorts, their elastic band the only thing willing to accommodate his sudden increase in size. His chest was streaked with grease, droppings from his snackings that had matted his chest hair to the point that it looked like a sticky brown bib. He was absorbed by the television, and barely looked up when Cade walked inside.

  “You have no burgers,” said the man. “You have no meat.”

  “You look like you’ve had plenty,” said Cade. “What’s your name, friend?”

  The man just snarled, flashing his teeth in an animalistic sneer before turning his attention back to the television.

  “It was worth a try,” said Cade. “Some demons are dumb enough to answer. You, you look like you’re a few levels up Hell’s hierarchy. Or down, depending on how you want to figure it.”

  “Meat,” said the man. “Want it.”

  “I’ve actually got some right here, in my bag of tricks,” said Cade, dropping a duffle bag on the floor. He rummaged around inside, and pulled out a small silver sphere—a Mather’s trap, designed to house demons, if you could get them inside of it.

  “Now I’ve got something you’ll want to take a look at,” said Cade. “It’s really pretty fascinating. Kind of a puzzle. You just take a peek inside this hole—”

  The man was quick, for someone so fat. But he wasn’t stupid, and he wasn’t so easily tricked. He leapt from his couch, barrelling towards Cade and swatting away the trap. It hit the floor with a clank and rolled away, ending up under the television stand and out of sight. He heaved himself at Cade, making a weapon of his mass, and though Cade tried to dodge he was caught by the legs. They both collapsed to the ground, Cade pinned at the knees underneath the man’s hefty gut.

  “Meat,” said the man. “Want me some meat. Want me the taste.”

  “Shit,” said Cade. “Get the fuck off me.”

  The man started snapping his teeth, clacking his jaws together and making a harsh, grinding sound. He kept lunging his head towards Cade’s legs, trying for a bite and missing by inches. It was only his own girth that stopped him. Quick as he might be, his neck could only move so far with his belly in the way. It held Cade down, but it held the man up, suspended on a plump cushion that restricted his movement.

  “Want me some,” said the man. “More.”

  “You want some, I’ll give you some,” said Cade, and he rolled up his sleeves. The man just kept biting, oblivious to the threat. Cade’s wrists were a weapon against its kind, with a cross surgically implanted under the skin of each. Blessed by the right priests, they were the bane of demons who came too close. He wrapped an arm around the man’s back, pressing his wrist against his bare skin.

  The man screamed, a deep yowl that was a blend of his own voice and something else’s. His head quit biting and snapped upward, and his eyes flared an angry red. Cade just grabbed on tight with the other arm, holding the man in a bear hug as smoke fizzled all along his skin wherever it touched Cade’s wrists.

  The man kept screaming, louder and louder, flopping and sweating and trying to break free. But Cade held tight, fighting through the strain. After a minute, the man was losing strength and losing consciousness. Soon he’d be down, and the demon could be exorcised at leisure. The pain was too much, for both man and demon, and Cade almost had him.

  But then the doorbell rang.

  The demon yelled anew, and the door flipped open. A teenage boy stood there, in a bright red hat and a bright red shirt, struggling beneath a stack of pizza boxes dozens high. He’d obviously been here before, and hadn’t bothered waiting for the man to get up and let him in. Now he stood paralyzed with indecision, staring at an unlikely wrestling match between what looked like a hungover washout from the executive suite and an escapee from a circus tent.

  “I can come back,” said the boy. “Or leave them here. One of you’s gotta sign.” He didn’t seem sure quite what was happening, or what he should do, or whether this was serious or just some mad joke.

  The fat man screamed, and his body started to twitch. His eyes rolled back into his head, and t
hen he slumped over. Most people wouldn’t have seen anything else, but Cade wasn’t most people.

  The demon separated itself from the man as he collapsed, an ethereal puppeteer abandoning its puppet. It seemed to glow, at least as Cade saw it. Though it looked like an apparition, it was very real, and very dangerous.

  It was fatter than the man, if that were possible, its giant stomach a bulbous sack drooping down almost to its knees. Its skin was brown, and mottled with warts. It had more chins than Cade could count, and beady red eyes peering out from under thick flaps of pudge. Two short, black horns poked out from its skull, and its mouth was filled with tiny yellow nubs, teeth that had been worn down from centuries of gnawing on anything and everything in reach.

  The demon waddled towards the pizza boy, though he didn’t react. He couldn’t see it, and didn’t have a clue what was coming. The demon grabbed on tight, and the boy started to jerk uncontrollably as their figures merged, splaying boxes of pizza across the ground. After a few seconds, only the boy was left, standing there glaring at Cade.

  “Hungry,” said the boy, scooping up a few handfuls of pizza slices from the floor and cramming them into his mouth. With that he turned and fled through the door, grease and chunks of cheese dripping from his chin.

  Now the fat man was himself again, and what he’d awoken to was sending him into shock. He looked down at himself and began wailing a shrill, constant moan. He kept feeling his body with his hands, grabbing at folds that hadn’t been there just days before, testing them again and again to see if they’d go away. None of them did, and it just made his cries louder and more anguished.

  “Fuck,” said Cade. “Roll over. Get off me.”

  “What’s happened?” said the man. “What the fuck? What’s happened to me? What the fuck?”

  “I don’t have time for this shit,” said Cade, shoving himself free. “Get off.”

  “Oh my god,” said the man. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t me.”

  Cade ran towards the door, but it was too late. An engine roared outside, as the demon made its escape in the pizza boy’s car. Then Cade’s phone began chirping with texts, loud, urgent complaints that almost drowned out the sound of the fat man’s sobs.

  §

  “He’s in there,” said Shanna. “And thanks to you, he knows we’re coming.”

  They were sitting in Cade’s car, casing the restaurant from across the parking lot, but so far they’d seen nothing. The place was dingy, the home of strip mall Sicilians offering the worst pizza at the best prices. Paeans to Italy hung all along the windows, and the flag was everywhere. A mustachioed cartoon Italian waved steaming pies beneath neon lights flashing “pizza,” alternating their glow between green, white, and red. The owners’ heritage was everywhere, sanitized and packaged for sale in a little white box of grease.

  “If I know him, he’s not waiting around for us,” said Cade. “He’s got an entire restaurant to clean out before he’ll bother.”

  “You don’t know him,” said Shanna. “If you knew anything about him, you’d know his name, and you’d have your bounty already.”

  “We know he’s a demon of gluttony,” said Cade. “That means we know who he works for. Beelzebub.”

  “Beelzebub’s an archdemon,” said Shanna. “Who knows how many others work for him? Thousands? Millions?”

  “It’s something,” said Cade. “It’s a place to start. There’s lots of ways to find a name, once you’ve got something to start with. Books. Information brokers. The Church. But my vote is to summon up some flunky from the same part of Hell and work him over until we get something better. I saw him. I can describe him. That means one of them can name him, given the right incentive.”

  “He’ll find another victim before you find out who he is,” said Shanna. “Heck, he’s possessing someone right now. What about that poor boy? What happens to him while you’re out playing detective?”

  “He eats a shitload of pizza,” said Cade. “Not a bad way to go.”

  “This isn’t your bounty anymore,” said Shanna. “It’s ours. You messed up, and I’m in charge. The Vatican’s not happy with you going maverick. Another word from me, and they pull their offer. So get serious, do things my way, and start worrying about the bystanders instead of your bank account.”

  “I don’t care about interfaith politics,” said Cade. “You can complain to the Vatican all you want. They need me. There’s not many sensitives out there, and even fewer willing to go into this line of work. Once you’re gone, they’ll simmer down and hire me again. So get your tools, and I’ll get my bag, and let’s get this over with.”

  “Just stay sober,” said Shanna. “I’ve heard about your vices, and I’m not getting killed over them.”

  They crept towards the restaurant, Cade with his duffel bag, and Shanna holding a small brown cardboard box. They couldn’t see it through the windows, even up close, but as they opened the door they could hear the demon in the back of the restaurant. It was somewhere in the kitchen, rattling pans and digging through ingredients. But it wasn’t inside the pizza boy anymore.

  He lay there on the ground, or at least half of him did. He’d been bitten clean in two, and only the top part was left, posed in mid-crawl, fingers clutching the floor where he’d tried to drag himself away from the demon. Shanna nearly retched at the sight, choking back her lunch and trying to stay quiet.

  “We can still go,” whispered Cade. “We can go find the name, and come back then. It’s the safe thing to do. The smart thing.”

  “I’m not leaving him on the loose,” said Shanna. “He’s attracting too much attention. The Vatican wants this thing muzzled, and so does the Executive Council. So you can go, but I’m staying. And I have a plan.”

  “Catholic Church, Episcopal Church,” said Cade. “Same shit, different day.”

  “Maybe to you,” said Shanna. “And maybe to everyone else. But to me, there’s all the difference in the world, and on that question it’s my faith that counts. Convince the Pope to call me Father, and I might even agree.”

  “They both want demons under wraps, and they’ll both pay to keep it that way,” said Cade. “That’s what counts to me, not theology. I’ve got debts. Big debts. I need my bounty. If you’re going after him, I’m coming, too. And I’m getting my cut.”

  Cade led the way towards the back, tiptoeing around the congealed blood that had pooled all around the pizza boy. As they advanced, they soon found he wasn’t the demon’s only victim. They saw two more bodies, the last remnants of the owners. The demon had rolled them underneath a dining table, wedging them between the booths. They’d been chewed on, and were missing chunks all over. The demon had picked the choicest cuts, according to its own peculiar tastes, and had stowed the rest for later.

  “Get down,” said Cade, as they saw movement in the kitchen. They ducked behind a table, though it was slim protection. They stuck out to the sides, and they’d have been easily seen if the demon had only paid attention. They could see its head, bobbing up and down, with drippings of red all along its cheeks. Whether it was blood or tomato sauce, they couldn’t tell. It was tossing up boxes and cans as it went through them, letting them land where they may once it was done licking them clean. It looked bigger than before, its body swollen and its skin stretched to the breaking point. Shanna got her first look at it, and was repulsed to the point of nausea.

  “He’s corporeal,” said Cade. “Means he’s getting stronger. Doesn’t need a host, doesn’t need to hide, doesn’t need shit.”

  “Lord, give us strength,” said Shanna. “Is this what it’s like? When you can see one of them?”

  “I don’t want to hear you complain about my drinking ever again,” said Cade. “Imagine finding something like that hiding under your bed as an eight year old. Seeing ghosts, that’s weird, but they’re too absorbed in their own issues to bother you. Demons just want to fuck with everyone and everything. The weak ones can’t do much. They can’t materialize, can’t
possess anyone, and most people never even know they’re there. But when they find out you can see them, God help you.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Shanna. “I didn’t know.”

  “They were whispering in my ear every night,” said Cade. “Every single night.”

  They heard a heavy clang, and an irritated snort. Dishes flew from the kitchen, smashing into pieces that exploded outward into the dining area. They could see it pacing back and forth past the kitchen doorway, and they kept down, hoping they could stay hidden. They thought they were fine, until they heard it speak.

  “Meat.”

  They looked around the table, and wished they hadn’t. The demon was staring squarely at them, its impossibly long tongue flicking in and out of its mouth and slowly running back and forth across its lips. Their eyes met, and it started for them.

  It had to go slowly, to make it through the door. It eased its way through sideways, pushing and squeezing its gut back and forth to make it fit. The grease helped. The demon was covered in it from whatever it had been gorging on, and it managed to extract itself from the kitchen, if only with inches to spare.

  “Thighs and legs,” said the demon. “Stomachs and spleens. Red things inside, that want to come out. Meat.”

  “Distract him,” said Shanna, as the demon heaved its way towards them. She clutched at her box, holding it close to her chest, and waited for Cade to make a move.

  “Jesus,” said Cade, and thrust his hand into his bag. He came out with Mary instead, a beaded black rosary with an icon of the Blessed Virgin and a cross dangling below it. He weighed the rosary in his hand, took aim at the lumbering demon, and gave it his best toss.

  The demon was a wide target, impossible to miss, and Cade hit the mark squarely on its head. The beads tangled around the demon’s horns, and the rosary’s cross flopped down over its face, swaying back and forth in front of it. The demon’s eyes widened, staring at what was before it, and for a few seconds it was paralyzed with indecision.