There was no need to hurt another. No need to wound or kill. She had all the flesh she needed to hand. All she needed to do was bulk herself up, get a bit of meat on her narrow frame and she’d be perfectly suited.
Jen had sobbed her joy and gratitude and cursed herself briefly for not considering the idea before now. So much time wasted. So many years of the hunger gnawing and chewing her secret heart. But that was over. Finally. She’d increased her daily food intake, counting her calories and relishing each mouthful exactly as she relished each gained ounce and pound. And through each meal, she’d kept her focus on the long-term goal—a goal that was in her hands this morning.
This was glorious. She thought the word over and over even as the long lines of blood turned the white of the bandages into a red sponge and her skin came further and further away from her leg (the gleaming muscle below was a red as fierce and bright as a sunset). This was hers and hers alone. No hurt here like before when she’d hurt anyone who’d got close, when she’d taken whatever she could get her hands on in a pointless attempt to silence the hunger. No bad days and months of her teenage years she no longer let herself fully remember. This was clean. This was her choice, her decision and it was glorious.
The long stretch of flesh came free with a gentle pulling sensation, and the pain floated in the air around Jen’s head. She no longer felt it fully, and while she suspected the days ahead would feel like fire in her body, she was prepared. Sutures, bandages, needles and plenty of painkillers all taken from the hospital over the last year while the cry inside told her to hurry, hurry, hurry. Never too much in one go, though, despite the crippling need to eat. No way. Jen was careful. Jen was clever. Jen was in this for the long haul.
Jen was clean.
She held the skin up to the sunlight falling through the windows in the patio. It could have been the peel to a new fruit. As pale as it was, as she was, the light made it glow, made its meat wet with good juices. And speaking of wet, she herself was, and not only with blood. It wasn’t her focus. While she couldn’t deny the strong wave of arousal that enveloped her from toe to skull, the sensation went way beyond anything physical. Despite the red flush coating Jen’s neck and chest, despite the delicious cool air stroking her crotch, the excitement fell deeper than nerve endings. It pulsed in time with her heart. It was her heart.
Jen placed the meat on the plate she’d bought especially for today and set about quickly treating the wound. The years of working in a hospital and paying attention to every operation she could meant that while she might possess no qualifications, she knew enough.
Within minutes, the streaming wound was sealed with a tidy row of sutures, the opening into her body sterilised and packed with dressings. Wiping her hands on one of her fresh tea towels and smearing them with great splashes of blood, Jen gripped the side of the sofa she’d rested against, took a few breaths and boosted herself up. The pain belonged to the air, not to her; even so, she couldn’t deny the bite of cramp that raced from thigh to toes. She waited a moment for it to pass, then grasped the plate with its cargo of precious meat and staggered to the kitchen.
Where the oven waited. And the spices.
THE END.
DEADBOY LIVES by Sara Green
Sherman was only six feet tall. That meant the casket he was in had an additional twelve inches in which he could stretch out his feet. It was also a bumpy ride, so the less-than-snug conditions were not ideal once the car started moving. The casket itself had looked quite comfortable, but the silk appearance of the liner was a façade and it was something scratchy like polyester. The kind the caught his fingernails tugged at the whiskers on his cheek.
When the car finally stopped, he sighed—loud enough that anyone would’ve heard had their ear been pressed up against the casket lid. Still, he reminded himself to keep quiet until the moment was right.
The car door opened, and chatter started.
The casket was supposed to be airtight (mostly), but Sherman could feel the difference in the air as soon as he was removed from the air conditioning and into the hot humidity. He knew he was going to get overheated real fast.
That might be the dead giveaway that he was still alive. A warm corpse is always suspect. He hoped they’d get him inside and into the basement quick. Sherman was certain it would be cooler there.
Their eyes were sensitive to the light, so Sherman imagined them with sunglasses on as they carted him down the basement stairs. So far, everything was going as planned.
Though, Sherman would feel much better once they ate him.
Sherman rubbed his perspiration on the itchy lining—he had been wrong, this was not part of the plan. Dead bodies don’t sweat. What would they do to him if they found him alive?
Sherman knew they’d kill him. That’s what Paul had told him before he closed the casket.
It was all Paul’s plan.
Paul knew everything about them. He called them the deadboys. They were scavengers, feeding off the dead, killing anyone for their next meal. They had killed Paul’s niece.
They killed Sherman’s parents as well.
They had to be stopped.
They brought Sherman into the basement. The change in temperature felt great. Sherman hoped they wouldn’t open the casket right away, and instead just let it sit so his perspiration would dry and his body temperature would drop.
Their chatter carried on. Through the lid of the casket, it mostly sounded like gibberish, but they spoke English, just like the normal people that they pretended to be in their daily lives. The deadboys held jobs, waved politely (often at their next meal), and even voted. But if you knew what to look for, you could spot them.
Their skin was paler than it should be, a little bluer than most. Their eyes were not white, or yellow, but a foggy gray that dulled even the pupil, but not so much that one would notice if they weren’t comparing them to a normal pair of human eyes.
The casket opened. Those eyes were on him now.
Paul had made Sherman practice playing dead. He was so complimentary, but all the confidence Sherman ever had just vanished. He was abandoned. His thoughts left to run in desperate circles of panic.
Even through the drugs, he could feel his heart beating—it wasn’t supposed to beat as fast as it was. And his blood coursed through him. He could feel it in his neck, tugging against his Adam’s apple. Couldn’t the deadboys see that?
“Start at the feet. The master will be by later for his head,” one of the deadboys said.
Sherman was grateful. His heart eased up a little. He tried to remember Paul’s kind words of encouragement. “You could pass for dead with your eyes open, Sherman,” Paull had said many times.
Paul and he had hoped for them to bite a leg or arm first, but one could never be sure. There weren’t any documentaries on the deadboys. There wasn’t a mention of them in textbooks or even the Bible. They just happened to be—when they should not.
It tickled.
That was the benefit of the painkillers Paul had given him. It was the good stuff—Paul had spared no expense. Sherman would’ve done more if he could’ve afforded it, but the insurance company wouldn’t pay out after his parent’s death, are as they termed it—disappearance. Seven years would need to pass before absentia would kick in and Sherman would inherit his parents’ wealth.
He couldn’t wait that long to have vengeance.
Sherman could almost make out each of their individual teeth. They took turns biting him, drinking his blood. Something tugged at Sherman. Like the string of a sweater, but a vein in his leg. The drugs hadn’t dampened the nerves connected to that. He winced. His teeth cracked as he clenched.
They would soon know. His blood was warmer than they were used to.
“Something’s wrong,” a deadboy said.
Sherman’s eyelids twitched. He strained to keep them closed, but one broke open just in time to see all the deadboys hunched over his legs. Their flesh was pale, but turning paler and greener, as their th
roats tightened with bad taste.
The deadboy gasped. “He’s…alive!”
Sherman laughed as the beings rolled up into vomiting balls of agony. What started as self-induced vomiting turned uncontrollable. Gallons of dark blue blood slopped out. They slipped in it, fell, and found their stomachs lying beside them.
“Ha, you stupid scavengers can’t eat living flesh! It needs to be dead!” Sherman sat up on the table and spun his half eaten legs around. It was a good thing the pain killers were still working. He tried not to look at his legs. But he did. They were down to the bone, only reddened by the blood that dripped from his knees. Don’t faint now, I want to watch them die, Sherman pleaded with himself.
A deadboy grimaced and pried its wretched eyes open just enough to see Sherman smiling above him.
“Too rare for your tastes?” Sherman asked.
“Yes… you idiot…living flesh kills…us…but…biting the living…turns them to….us….We were trying not to ….be…killers…”
Sherman eyebrows found the top of his forehead. His heart found the bottom of his stomach.
He could already feel his hunger starting to change. It wouldn’t be long before he looked like them. Killed like them. Fed like them.
Sherman did not stop them.
The deadboys live.
THE END
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