The Hunger

by Ryan Casey

  He descended the hill, passed the bloody tree and got closer to the pond. He could see the water moving in his torchlight now. There was definitely something in there, and it wasn’t a frog or a bird. Traffic continued on the road above. Wind brushed through the trees.

  Splash. Splash. Splash.

  Then nothing.

  He waited a few seconds. Held his breath. Watched and listened for another splash. Blood swished through his head. What the fuck was happening? What was going on?

  Whatever it was had stopped.

  He edged to the side of the pond and shone his torch against the surface. Completely grey-brown. Completely murky. The water was still. There were no ripples. Was he imagining things? Going mad?

  That was when he saw her face.

  It appeared out of nowhere, right beneath him. As it did, it stared right at him, wide-eyed, fear right across its submerged face.

  Or rather, her submerged face.

  Jonny fell back. He gasped as he slipped on a damp patch of mud towards the pond, towards the murky water, towards Rebecca. She was alive. She was under there and she was alive and she was staring at him, struggling, shouting.

  He clutched at the side of the bank and grappled his way free of the pond, covered in mud from head to toe. Fuck. She was there. She was there, staring at him, flapping her pale arms against the water, saying silent words underneath the water. She was there, and she was alive. What did he do? How the fuck did he explain this? She couldn’t be alive. He should’ve been relieved that he hadn’t killed anybody after all, but… well, he had. She had to be dead.

  But she wasn’t. He had to think. Think fast.

  From the road, he heard the squeaking of brakes. A familiar sound. One he’d heard recently. He heard feet hitting the concrete, excited voices shouting and laughing and joking. He dismissed it at first, staring at Rebecca’s struggling, should-be-drowned body, trying to figure out what the hell to do. This wasn’t right. She should be dead. Even if he didn’t want that… she should be.

  He noticed flickers of light against the pond. Flickers of light that were independent of his torchlight. He heard footsteps getting closer, too. The excited voices getting closer. Shit. They couldn’t be coming this way, could they?

  He looked around.

  Eight young boys were heading in his direction. All of them were wearing green jumpers—the same green jumper he’d worn as a Cub Scout. Behind them, three older Cub Scouts followed, fishing nets and waste bags in hand.

  “Okay, lads—prizes for the three people who clean up the most junk from the pond,” one of the older Cub Scout guardians said. “And new badges awarded by the mayor anyway for cleaning all this lot up.”

  Jonny stared at the lights of the excited pre-teen Cub Scouts as they got closer and closer.

  Rebecca continued to thrash in the water.

  This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t be happening.

  20.

  Sarah hadn’t been expecting to be called back to work quite so soon after her suspension.

  She drove down the familiar road to TCorps HQ. The sky was grey and cloudy—a typical British winter’s day. Hell knew what this was about. All they’d told her on the phone was that Mr. Belmont desperately wanted to speak to her about an “urgent opening.” There were only two possibilities—realistic ones—that she could think of.

  One, they’d done some research into her HIV antidote and realised she was right all along.

  Or two, they knew about Jonny Ainsthwaite.

  As she indicated to enter the visitor parking area, which was much quieter than the staff one to the right, she tried to ease her mind. They couldn’t possibly know about Jonny Ainsthwaite. And even if they did, they’d have no way of knowing it was she who’d spiked his drink with the formula. No—this was something else.

  And as much as she wanted it to be positive news, she couldn’t help but wonder what Mr. Belmont wanted to meet with her so urgently about.

  She got out of her car, bought a ticket at the machine—an expensive habit she hoped she wasn’t going to have to get used to—stuck it on her window, then headed to the visitor entrance of TCorps. It felt strange. Working here for so many years, immediate access through the back door, and now here she was, an outsider, being forced to take the route of the “normal person.” She kept her head down as she pushed through the revolving glass doors and entered the reception.

  Mr. Belmont was already waiting for her at the front desk.

  “Miss Appleton,” he said. He offered a hand and pulled away from the shake before Sarah even managed to get a word in. “Glad you could make it. If you’d like to follow me, please.”

  Sarah looked around reception. A soundtrack of ringing, unanswered phones echoed through the area. Short, chubby women behind computers whispered to one another. The face and voice of TCorps. Surely the company had enough money to hire some more… well, attractive receptionists?

  Mr. Belmont led the way to the elevator on the right. Immediately, Sarah realised she wasn’t a visitor. This elevator was staff only. The elevator on the left was for visitors.

  She wasn’t a visitor. She was a guest.

  She followed Mr. Belmont into the elevator. He pressed number 160, and the doors closed. Damn. 160. They were going high up. Not quite Mr. Belmont’s office level, but pretty high for sure.

  Sarah stared at the grey metal doors as the elevator shot upwards. Mr. Belmont was standing still, completely silent. She wasn’t sure whether to speak or wait to be spoken to. She didn’t even know why the hell she was here. She had an idea, but she couldn’t be sure.

  “I’m going to cut through the bullcrap, Miss Appleton. Yes, you were wrong to break company policy in order to pursue this little side project of yours. We’ll discipline you for that as normal. But the thing you’ve created. Turnstone, we’re calling it for now. It’s quite something.”

  Sarah looked at Mr. Belmont. His eyes were glimmering. He had a sly smile on his face. Turnstone. Sarah was right. She was here to be lauded for her genius. It had worked. They’d done their research—their tests on the rat—and they’d seen it worked.

  “Well, thank you—”

  “I don’t know if you know this yourself yet, but Turnstone, it has properties that go way beyond those in your pitch. It has real, genuine healing properties. Reanimation properties. And not just in the HIV-infected.”

  Sarah squinted. “Reanimation?”

  “It means a restoration of life—”

  “I know what it means,” Sarah said. Her mind raced. She knew her formula—“Turnstone,” or whatever—was capable of a dramatic increase in CD4 cells. Cells that would help in the fight against HIV and the onset of AIDS. But reanimation? That was beyond anything she’d imagined.

  “So the… the rat. It died?”

  Mr. Belmont smiled. “Unfortunately yes, Miss Appleton. Your pet passed away a day ago.”

  “And it… it came back?”

  “No, Miss Appleton. But something else did. Someone else.”

  The lift rumbled to a halt and the doors slid open. It was when Sarah looked inside that she realised where she was. Quarantine Zone. She’d been here once or twice before, but generally it was a no-go zone.

  Mr. Belmont held out a hand. “Please. Lead the way. I’ll explain the situation to you as we go. But it’s really worth seeing in order to believe.”

  Sarah hesitated. She watched Mr. Belmont, who held his steely smile, and his static arm. She half-smiled, then walked past him, looking around the Quarantine Zone. Glass windows ran all the way down the narrow, grey corridor. White light beamed from each room, contrasting with the gloominess outside.

  “The third window, Miss Appleton. Take a look inside. Then you’ll understand.”

  Sarah started walking. She looked through the first window, and was surprised to see, through an open blue curtain, a doctor in a white coat sitting beside the bed of a woman, who looked semi-conscious. Her arms were strapped to the side of the bed
with brown leather belts.

  She could’ve sworn the woman looked just like Donna Carter.

  “The third window,” Mr. Belmont repeated. He pushed his hand to her back, which made her jolt forward just to escape his touch.

  She walked past the second window. The room, which resembled a hospital room, was empty.

  Or at least it looked empty, but the blue curtain was shut in this case.

  Donna Carter. It can’t have been Donna Carter. Why would she be in Quarantine? Why would she be lying in that bed, arms strapped down, looking so weak?

  The thought soon dissolved when she looked through the next window.

  Inside, there was a man. He had a gaping wound on his neck. His once-white bedsheets were stained red, and his arms were raw where he pulled against the brown leather belts. He was dribbling, and he looked like he was breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his stubbly face.

  “What… what… Why is this man…?” Sarah’s heart raced. Her mouth was dry. She couldn’t understand what she was looking at. She couldn’t see the relevance of this, or what any of it had to do with her. “Why are you showing me this?”

  Mr. Belmont smiled that trademark vacant, robotic smile. He cleared his throat. “This is Adam Chester. He was exposed to the Turnstone formula less than a day ago when he was brutally attacked by another Turnstone carrier. He died within hours of his bite wounds.”

  Sarah frowned. She looked back at the man—Adam—in puzzlement. Looked at his eyes as they rolled around his head; looked at his fists, so tight that his palms were dripping with blood from his nails. He wasn’t dead. He was far from dead. “But how is he alive if he died? What did this?”

  Mr. Belmont held his smile. “This, Miss Appleton, is Turnstone. And I believe it’s the greatest discovery TCorps has ever made.”

  Sarah stared through the window at Adam. He kept on struggling, kept on shouting out. Every few minutes, she swore he looked her in the eye, right through the reflective glass. And when he did, she felt nothing but hate from him. Nothing but an urge—a desire—to put her through hell all because of what he was going through.

  “Yesterday, just after your suspension, Mrs. Carter went down to the lab with Phillip to see to this pet rat of yours. Only she went and got bitten, didn’t she? Got a little bite, then off runs the rat and off disappears Mrs. Carter to her office. No increase in the rat’s CD4, by the way, so nothing to look at.

  “So we think nothing of it. Mrs. Carter goes to her office to do a night shift of work, which she often does. It’s only when our good friend Phillip finds the rat that he realises what’s going on. The rat’s CD4 levels dropped when it had a little snack on its own flesh, but its CD8 levels increased. So when the rat comes running back to Phillip, absolutely starving, it’s desperate for another snackeroo—other than itself, of course. And, surprise, surprise, its CD4 levels are up again.”

  Mr. Belmont’s story went on. Checking on Donna, who collapsed then lashed out at a security guard, Adam—the man behind the glass window—ravaging his neck and causing serious blood loss. Adam’s apparent death, then his waking up again. The “violence,” they were calling it. A violent urge of those with Turnstone to feed on human flesh in order to steady the rising CD4 levels and convert them into CD8. A reset of a timer, balancing things out again. She didn’t understand why it was working like this, or how it was working, only that it was.

  And that’s where her role in all of this came into it.

  “I’m sure you’ll agree this is a great discovery,” Mr. Belmont said. “Well, you made the formula, after all. But, Miss Appleton, we need your help. Of course, we can’t just go sending out test samples of Turnstone in its current state, not with the dangers it poses. The potential risks would be catastrophic. But I’d like to offer you an opportunity. An opportunity to develop something for us. Whether it’s a way to stop the ‘violence’ completely, or an artificial way to nourish it, we need to find a way to make Turnstone work for us. The raw materials of something truly phenomenal are here. And they’re yours to experiment on.”

  He paused, and looked at Adam, who screamed out at the top of his lungs. “We’d be willing to provide you with an unlimited supply of test subjects. Animals, rats, and the like. Of course, Mrs. Carter and Mr. Chester we can only keep a secret for so long. But it will be long enough. Turnstone is safe as long as it stays locked behind these solid doors, for now. And fortunately, that’s right where it is. So you can be as patient as you desire. Within reason, of course. Any questions?”

  Sarah’s heart thumped. Her mind raced. She stared into the glass window. Nausea welled up inside her. Shit. What had she done? What had she done?

  “Miss Appleton? You look rather pale. Would you like to move to somewhere more… well, aesthetically appealing? We can talk about setting up your own lab in here and—”

  “There’s a problem,” Sarah said.

  “A problem?” It was the first time Sarah noticed a twitch at the corners of his static smile.

  Sarah gulped. Her jaw shook. “You say Turnstone is safe as long as it is locked behind thick metallic doors.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Belmont said. “Which is how it is.”

  “That’s not entirely true.”

  A pause.

  “Miss Appleton? What do… What are you trying to tell me?”

  A sense of panic; of urgency; of “what the fuck have you gone and done?” filled her body.

  “Miss Appleton? I demand you to—”

  “There might be somebody else with Turnstone inside them. Somebody… somebody on the outside.”

  Mr. Belmont attempted to hold his smile, but for the very first time, it dropped completely.

  21.

  The lights from the torches grew closer and closer, blinding Jonny’s eyesight.

  The Cub Scout group were heading his way. They were heading to the pond for an evening clear-up of the place. They were going to find Rebecca. They were going to find her—her should-be-dead body—and she was going to tell them what he’d done and he wasn’t going to get away with it.

  He was frozen to the spot by the side of the pond. He had to think. Fast.

  He lurched to his right, keeping himself low, as the excited footsteps got closer.

  “Kids, stop running right now and make sure you have your life jackets on. Don’t want to see any of you slipping in there, do we?”

  Jonny moved towards the foliage on the right. He could see Rebecca moving under the water in the corner of his eye, the pale skin of her arms reaching out for him as he moved. He couldn’t look at her again. Really, the logical thing to do was just to drag her out of there. But then what? He’d dug himself too deep a hole. No—he’d made his call here. He had to get away. He had to get to the train station at the other side of town, and fast. She was alive. The Cub Scouts would find her and take her to the hospital. She’d tell the police about what he’d done, and the whole thing would swing in her favour, even though he was just trying to do the right thing in his own mind.

  As he reached the other side of the pond, almost slipping on the wall of mud, he looked back as the torchlights flickered ahead of him.

  Rebecca looked him directly in the eye.

  She should be dead. She had to be dead.

  And yet there she was, alive.

  He moved slowly through the trees. Fortunately, he’d just about got out of sight, which meant that he could loop his way out of the woods and get back onto the main road again. But he was covered in mud. Somebody on the train would notice him, and then they’d put two and two together when the inevitable news story of what he’d done to Rebecca broke out. Fuck. His mum. She’d be so disappointed. So disappointed. She’d blame herself forever. He’d never forgive himself for that.

  As he moved through the trees, the lights of the road getting closer, he noticed the hunger deep in his stomach, growing in intensity. The discovery of Rebecca had dampened the hunger somewhat, but it was back, now. It was back, and although he did
n’t understand it, he knew what it meant. The thought of skin—of red, human flesh—ran through his mind. He’d have to make sure he found a private area on the train. Somewhere with as few people as possible.

  He didn’t trust himself around people anymore.

  He stopped behind a thick tree and looked back at the pond. The Cub Scout group had arrived, but strangely, they hadn’t kicked up any kind of fuss. There was still the same old excitement in the children’s voices, and the familiar authoritarian tone in the guardians’ speeches. Maybe he really had been seeing things. Fuck—perhaps that’s what all this was. Some kind of schizophrenic hallucination. He—no, the hunger—had killed somebody, after all. The things he’d done, they had to affect him mentally, right?

  He started to walk again. He’d have to think about his next stage of the plan, which was calling Anita. Perhaps he could tell her Rebecca and he were going away for a few days? But no. That would link the pair again. It would drag him in even deeper. He had to make Anita believe Rebecca had left him at some point in the day. He could tell Anita that Rebecca was heading her way to apologise. That would tie in with her dead body being in the pond. He could pretend something happened tonight, and then he could disappear.

  His preliminary plan fell to pieces the moment he heard the blood-curdling scream behind him.

  He turned around. He could hear struggling in the water, and could just about see water splashing up. Shouting. Panicking. Struggling. A Cub Scout guardian pulling off his jumper and jumping in the water.

  A small part of Jonny hoped that the scream was simply down to the discovery of Rebecca’s body. That was it—a panicked cry. He would’ve panicked if he’d seen a body out and about, right?

  But as he squinted at the pond, lit up by the artificial lights of the torches, he realised that something else was happening.

  Something much worse.

  One of the Cub Scout guardians, a man in his early thirties with thinning, damp black hair, was tugging something out of the water. Something large and green. Something struggling.