Hungry Hearts

by Gary McMahon

  Leaning in close, he placed his lips against the spot where he knew her mouth would be. She had no breath. Coldness seeped through the wrappings; it made his lips harden and his cheeks prickle. He kissed her softly, carefully, not wanting to cause further damage to her frame. His tongue lapped at the dim curve of her bandaged mouth.

  The fact that she did not respond to his advances seemed like a come-on; she was simply playing hard-to-get.

  He caressed her cold, hard breasts, the nipples like tiny stones beneath her clothes. Running one hand down her body and across her thigh, he eased in towards her, bending her back on the dining chair. The legs creaked under their combined weight, but he slid into her lap and wrapped his legs around her waist, straddling her like he used to do. It was all so natural, like things had never changed between them.

  His hand found the place between her legs that represented a kind of heaven, but it was cold, desolate... a barren region that now shunned life. He ploughed on, refusing to accept that this wasn’t working, that it was impossible to make love to the dead. His hips bucking wildly against her lower abdomen, he attempted to transfer the heat of his erection into her stalled system, as if the very energy of his passion might rouse her enough to couple with him.

  Darling... it feels so good.

  He lifted his feet off the floor and pushed his chest against her, feeling her eager stiffness and trying to break through the barrier death had placed in his way. He felt her striving towards him, straining to make contact...

  When the chair leg broke, tipping them both onto the floor, he continued his seduction as if nothing had happened, fumbling at the buttons on her pants and pulling them down to her ankles. He forced her unresisting legs apart with one knee; while at the same time he dragged his own trousers down to release his throbbing erection.

  Don’t, baby. Not here. Not now. It isn’t right.

  He wept into her throat, thrusting his dwindling cock against her. Its softening tip entered her ice-cold navel, and then slid down against the roughened skin to probe her knotted pubic thatch. He reached down to guide himself inside, almost snapping her spine with his ardour. Rubbing at her to sustain the moment, he suddenly felt something writhe wetly against his fingers... he pulled them away and lifted his hand to his face, amazed that he’d encountered moisture.

  Maggots curled around his fingers, fattened on the corruption at his wife’s core, their lazy white bodies falling from his knuckles and landing on her chest, where they coiled sleepily.

  Sally’s covered mouth nuzzled at his chest, her ineffectual jaws trying to clamp down on his flesh.

  “Nooooo!” he lurched to his feet, pulling up his trousers, and lashed out at the table behind him. The wine bottle shattered, slashing the skin of the world, and suddenly he became aware of what he had been in the process of becoming – a rapist of the dead.

  “Aaaaargh!” The sounds he made were barely even human, just empty noises.

  He fell to his knees, pounding his fists on the floor, and heard sharply and clearly the final strand of his sanity as it snapped with a loud thunderclap. That internal wind returned, this time haunted by the moans of the deceased.

  Then he was still. The earth spun beneath him, continuing its rapid journey towards oblivion, but Rick was a statue, a man frozen in one moment forever – however long that might be.

  Sally was motionless, her bare legs bruised and blackened, the skin ruptured in several places and white maggots boiling forth. Her white-wrapped head seemed incongruous, like some kind of allegory for a reality that was now far beyond Rick’s grasping hands.

  Her head moved from side to side. He could see the shape of her mouth under the wrappings, and yet again she was attempting to clamp them down onto something... to feed.

  Hungry.

  He stood, stared at her damaged body. “You want something to eat?” He was snarling now, leaving his old self far behind at the side of a road, a track which could only lead deep inside the darkness that sat at his centre. “You want some fucking food?”

  He shrugged on his jacket and stalked outside, heading towards the barn. The moon hung suspended, like a cheap prop in a bad movie, and beneath its chill light he passed into the dense shadow cast by the barn.

  Rohmer would have wanted to be of use; he would have hated his body to have gone to waste, rotting in a quiet corner of an empty barn.

  Rick crossed the space and grabbed an axe from its place near a pile of chopped timbers. Its weight was a comfort in his hands, promising the nullifying emptiness of manual labour. He turned, walked towards Rohmer’s cooling corpse.

  The body was already stiff, but there was plenty of meat on it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  HUNGRYHUNGRYHUNGRYhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungryhungry

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  AFTER WHAT FELT like hours, Rick left the barn and returned to the dismal moonlight.

  He felt exposed.

  His hands were bloody and he was carrying an old sack he had found hanging from a nail on the wall. The sack had originally contained a few pieces of rusted engine – random machine parts perhaps meant for the scrap yard – which he’d emptied out onto the ground. Now it contained only meat.

  Faceless, nameless meat.

  Back in the cottage he sat Sally on the sofa and once again removed the bandages from her tattered head, then placed the resultant white snake on the floor at her feet.

  So much had changed between them but he and Sally had never been closer. He recalled the man he used to be with fondness, and truly waved goodbye to the past. Those were different people, the ones who had lived in a nice apartment and went to normal jobs. The people they were now would not even recognise themselves in the shabby meat puppets who had gone before.

  The ghost of himself passed quietly from view, head down, hands open... he stared at Sally with fondness; her slashed features, the maggots that writhed in her bloodless wounds, the alien hunger that drove her.

  Things were different. They were different. He loved his new wife in a way that he would not have been able to imagine as little as a few days before.

  Very carefully he took the wadded cotton wool from her mouth, pulling it out of her throat like some huge mutated eel or giant maggot – the larger brother or sister of the ones he’d found between her thighs.

  The cotton wool was now densely compacted, and it had absorbed whatever moisture had remained in Sally’s throat after her death. When it was removed, the throat closed up over the absence; it made a faint sucking sound, like a vacuum.

  Rick got a knife from the kitchen – the sharpest he could find – and cut Rohmer’s meat into strips. He also found a tool box in there, so he brought it through, a rough plan forming in the fractured landscape of his mind.

  Then, carefully, and without tears, he dropped the strips into Sally’s open mouth, forcing it down the unnaturally tightened cavity of her throat with the handle of the knife. After a few scraps had passed along her throat and the swollen, dead muscles relaxed a little, he was able to simply scoop the meat into her mouth.

  It reminded him of a nature programme he’d once seen, where a mother bird dropped bits of food into the upturned beaks of her brood.

  Despite the morphine, Sally’s jaws worked well enough to snatch at the slivers of flesh.

  Rick kept his hands well out of the way, mindful that she did not snap off the end of a finger or thumb. Hideously, her yellow teeth began to crack when they came together, the force of her jaws too strong for the thin pieces of meat to fully absorb, and the jagged shards which remained looked lethal as tiny daggers.

  After Sally had taken her fill he smashed out the rest of her teeth with a hammer.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 
; HEAT MEAT HURTS good light dawn sparkling full ease good good mine good god good red wet meat god content

  PART FOUR

  AND ALL IS MEAT

  “Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?"

  - Luke 12:23

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  IT WAS THE fire that woke Daryl, or at least the reflection of it behind his closed eyelids. He stirred, bringing up his arms and feeling like he was restrained somehow, as if someone had tied him up while he dozed.

  His limbs ached. The air was freezing; the chill had slipped between his layers of clothing to caress his skin and cool his blood. It was dark, daylight was still a couple of hours away.

  He was sitting within the desiccated branches of a stout bush, half-hidden by the grasping twigs and the thickened roots showing above the soil. For some reason he’d felt the spot was a good vantage point – like a hide used by birdwatchers – and had positioned himself there hours ago.

  The fire flickered in the distance, catching his attention from behind the trees on the other size of the canal. Because of his elevated position, he could clearly see the cottage and the two vehicles parked outside. One, he knew, was the ex-army jeep that had been stored in one of the outbuildings. He’d watched Nutman drive it into the open during the night, scrutinising him through the binoculars. The man had looked intense as he worked; his face a mask of concentration, his hands steady as he manoeuvred the jeep across the uneven ground.

  Nutman had spent a few moments looking up at the dark sky before returning inside, and the look on his face had been unreadable. Daryl had been unable to work out if it was fear or longing or both...

  Not long after that, Daryl must have fallen asleep.

  He watched the flames as they licked at the side of the barn, clasping the structure from beneath like a giant demonic hand. Nutman stood nearby, staring at the conflagration. Daryl raised the binoculars and examined him close-up; his eyes were like stones in his unmoving face.

  Daryl wondered if the man had finally lost his mind.

  “Join the fucking club,” he said, easing his arse off a particularly tough root.

  He used the binoculars to glance along the edge of the canal, a few miles east of where Nutman was setting fire to the outbuildings. Off in the distance, a group of dead people wandered in a field. He watched, fascinated, as they pulled apart an old scarecrow, as if thinking it might contain some meat. One of the group was not much more than a skeleton with drapes of flesh hanging from its bones; the rest were in good condition, apart from the usual bloodless bite marks, death-wounds and missing bits and pieces. One of them sported gunshots; large holes peppered its torso and half the biceps on its right arm had been vaporised.

  It was fascinating. No matter how they died, they came back... unless, of course, that death involved destruction of the brain. Otherwise they returned, picking themselves up and running, shambling, even crawling across the landscape in search of prey. Daryl mused about their hunger for human flesh. Just why did they need to consume human meat? Was there something in the warm flesh, or maybe in the fresh blood, that eased the pain of being dead – or was it simply a natural desire, repressed by eons of evolution, which awoke after these things were revived?

  So many questions... and Daryl doubted that anyone had an answer. Not the absent media, the surviving dregs of the government, or whatever doctors and scientists had managed to escape to secret think-tanks buried under the streets of the major cities.

  All we have is faith. That was something Mother had always believed in, even near the end. She swore that society was constantly on the brink of coming apart, and rather than rely upon politicians or scientists we should all be putting our faith in God.

  Daryl thought she might have had a point. Not about God – no, he could never believe in that bullshit. But perhaps her ideas regarding faith were pretty much correct. When everything else slips away, and the world becomes a battleground of the dead, faith is all that remains: faith in oneself, faith that good will triumph, and enough faith that before your end arrives you’ll have one bullet left to put in your brain.

  Faith.

  The fire had almost consumed the barn when he swung the binoculars back in the direction of the cottage. Nutman was nowhere in sight.

  Daryl struggled to his feet and crossed the dirt to the moped. He could barely believe that such a ridiculous vehicle had served him so well. He’d had ample opportunities to trade it for something bigger and better – a real motorcycle, or a fast car – but for some reason he’d kept the moped. It seemed fitting somehow that the world’s greatest serial killer, the only man ever to kill the same woman twice, should possess such an idiosyncratic chariot.

  “Hello?”

  Daryl tensed at the sound of the voice behind him. Then, taking a breath, he continued fastening his bag to the moped.

  “Oh, God. I’m so glad to see you...”

  He slowly turned, pasting a smile onto his face, and confronted the owner of the voice.

  A tall man stood there, framed by the distant flames and the black smoke. He was slim, narrow of build, and was leaning on a thick branch to support his weight. Daryl glanced at the man’s leg and saw that it was strapped up with rags, probably broken by the look if it.

  “I never thought I’d see another... well, living person again. Everyone’s gone, out of the city and into the countryside. I haven’t seen a live one for at least two days.” The man was smiling. He seemed on the verge of genuine joy.

  “Where have you come from?” Daryl took a step forward, keeping his hands behind his back.

  “Leeds,” said the man, stumbling forward a few steps. “The whole place has crumbled. Buildings on fire, looters running wild, what few police left on the streets killing people on sight. By the time I got out of there, there was hardly anyone normal left. Just dead people and crazy coppers. It’s carnage.” His eyes were wide and wild; his teeth were black and his lips split and swollen.

  “I’m Daryl.”

  “Alan. Alan Harley. It really is good to meet you, Daryl. I had some trouble about a mile back, came off my bike when I ran into some of those dead bastards in the road. They nearly got me...” he glanced at his leg. “It smashed when I hit the deck. Hurt like hell, but still I managed to get up and run.”

  Daryl nodded, pretending that he was interested. Then, swiftly, he brought out the camera from behind his back.

  “I’m making a sort of documentary, Alan. Filming people I meet; capturing their stories in digital media. It might be useful once everything goes back to normal. A kind of document of events from ground level.”

  “Uh-huh.” Alan did not look convinced. He was too tired to even attempt to hide his frown.

  “Care to participate?” Daryl switched on the camera and began to circle Alan, viewing him through the lens. Everything looked different through the lens: it looked better than reality.

  “I... I’m not sure, Daryl. I mean, isn’t this a little crazy? I kind of need some help here, you know.”

  “Oh,” said Daryl, lowering the camera. “I see. You don’t want to play.”

  Alan’s confused smile hung on his lips; his eyes were wet.

  Daryl took the gun from the waistband of his trousers, bringing it around to point the barrel at Alan. The other man did not at first register the weapon, and then when he finally saw it he sighed heavily. That was all: just a sigh.

  “Goodbye, Alan.” Daryl pulled the trigger. The first shot missed its target, pinging off into the air somewhere to Alan’s left. Alan stupidly turned his head to follow the round, as if trying to catch sight of it in mid flight.

  Daryl pulled the trigger again.

  This time blood spattered from Alan’s left arm, high up near the shoulder. The man pitched backwards, his balance lost.

  The third shot caught him in the face, smashing his nose and cheekbones and turning the grey air around his head a bright powdery red.

  Daryl did not even watch him fall.
>
  He returned his attention to the burning barn, filming it with the camera. Soon Nutman came out of the cottage, carrying the young girl in his arms. He held her close to his chest, like a baby, and stared into her upturned face. It took him several minutes to lay her down in the rear of the jeep and cover her with blankets. Then, after reaching down to muss her hair, he turned back and once again entered the cottage.

  This time he was carrying Sally. Her bandaged head looked bright white in the darkness and her limbs hung stiffly as he carried her to the vehicle. He placed her in the passenger seat, pressing her legs into the foot well.

  Daryl alternated between camera and binoculars, caught between viewing and filming.

  Nutman watched the blaze for a little while longer and then climbed into the jeep. The rear tyres spat up dust as he drove away.

  Daryl turned around to climb aboard the moped, and was mildly shocked to see Alan standing behind him, his shattered nose not much more than a hole in the centre of his face.

  “Oh, my,” he said, aware how stupid that sounded. “My, oh my. What do we have here, then?”

  Alan opened his mouth and bared his blackened teeth. He hissed like a cat; spittle erupted into the air. His eyeballs were red, filled with blood from the damage, and Daryl was fascinated by the aura of menace the corpse wore.

  “Come on, then. Let’s be having you.” He felt no fear. All that was well behind him now, back in his old life; fear had died with Mother, and any lingering traces which may have been left behind had gone with Claire into that pit under the dilapidated power station.

  Daryl was now a man without fear, a breed apart from other men.

  Alan sidestepped, then lumbered forward. If it were not for the broken leg, he would have moved a lot faster: freshly dead, with no damage to his brain, he should have been quick and nimble. The shattered limb meant that Daryl had time to watch.