Hunger (10 page)
Authors: Karen E. Taylor
The odor of blood fills the room. I put my fingers up to my mouth and suck. Suddenly, I am not alone. I can see no one, but feel a breath, hot on my back, and an urgent mouth pressed to my neck. I push away and run the length of the corridor. It seems endless and I run forever, laughter pursuing me, chasing me down to the final door.
This door I open in trepidation to find a wondrous sight. I am outdoors, on a clear summer night, in a sweet smelling field. I lie down on the grass, slightly wet but still warm from the day's sun. I admire the stars; they are bright and beautiful and seem to speak to me of peace and contentment.
“This must be heaven,” I whisper, afraid to break the mood, when suddenly the sky grows dark.
An enormous black overwhelms the stars; it shifts its form, coalescing into the shape of a giant bird, man-sized and elegant. It hovers above me, as if in homage to my prone body, silently asking permission. I smile and stretch my arms to it; it descends upon me and I caress its wings, glossy as silk.
I feel no shame as I realize my clothes have disappeared, for it covers my naked body with a rustling sigh. Itâno, heâis dark and beautiful like the night, my skin against the ebony feathers is the pale white reflection of the moon, the stars. The coming together seems as natural, as inevitable as the tides. I welcome even the pain of his penetration, giving myself entirely to this creature of the night. We are one. His beak grazes my breasts, closing upon the nipples, and I gasp. He smells of blood, a perfume so intoxicating I almost faint. But his movement within me quickens and my body responds. “Oh, God,” I cry as he fills me with the blackness of the sky.
He gazes at me, with wise crow's eyes and promises future delights, then rises from me on strong wings. There is no feeling of emptiness when he departs, just a serene acceptance of this mystery. My thighs are sticky and warm. I lie there for what seems an eternity when suddenly above the soft night noises, I hear a strange tearing sound. I turn on my side, as curious as a child to witness this new event.
The giant bird is systematically stripping the flesh from the bones of two bodies, one full-grown, the other piteously small. I want to cradle these two, bring them back to life, but I cannot move, cannot call out. I gasp and the bird stops its mutilation and turns to me, laughing. It is his laugh, the laughter of the corridor, but the face on the bird is mine . . .
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“You must kill it,” I shrieked. “Kill it before it grows larger.” I realized I was grasping at someone's sleeve, my head burrowing into a warm lap. I open my eyes to see the broad, friendly face of Mrs. Blake, concern in her eyes. “Oh, it was so horrible,” I began haltingly. “I didn't know. It was so beautiful, so dark, but so evil. How could I know? And I let it touch me and then it was tearing the flesh from their bones . . .” My mind stopped in mid-thought. “I can't seem to remember it all, but it is important. I must try to remember.”
“Now, now, dearie, it seems to me you should just forget it. It was only a bad dream, after all.” She looked at me critically. “How do you feel now?”
As my fear dissipated, I relaxed and stretched, considering her question. “Actually, I feel good.” There was a note of surprise in my voice; I could hardly believe my physical state. “Better than good, I feel . . .” I paused, searching for the right word. “I feel reborn, as if this last, terrible month has been washed away.” To emphasize my words I arose from the bed and led her in a wild, whirling dance through the bedroom.
She was flushed and breathless when we finally stopped. “Well, child,” she puffed, “you certainly seem fit enough. I knew a good meal and a good sleep would set you up righter than rain.” She beamed at me and nodded her head, taking full credit for my recovery.
“That's right, Mrs. Blake. You can tell them all that you did it, you and that beautiful, beautiful roast you brought.”
“Well, I did have the butcher cut it special for me. I brought you another just like it, I did, when I saw that you had eaten the other.” At my look of shockâhad she watched me eat it?âshe laughed. “You see, child, I let myself in earlier, you were sleeping like a baby and I didn't like to disturb you. But I did think I could help out with the cleaning and such. You beat me to it, though, didn't you?” She didn't wait for an answer but continued. “Hard work is a good cure for what ails you. Anyway, what I meant to say was that I noticed when I was in the kitchen that you'd eaten it all. So I ran out and got another. It's cooking right now, can't you smell it?”
Now that she had called it to my attention, I could indeed smell it; the nauseating smell of roasting flesh permeated the air. I would have to get her out of here, or she would sit down with me and force me to eat every bite. My mind raced, trying to come up with an excuse for her to leave, when I thought back to our conversation yesterday.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Oh, about half past five. You slept a good long time.”
“But Mrs. Blake,” I said in mock horror, “don't you have to be at church tonight?”
“Goodness, yes I do! Seeing you put it clean out of my mind. But will you be all right? I don't want to leave, somehow. You seem good now, but yesterday,” she clucked her tongue, “well, I don't mind saying you gave me quite a scare there.” She rose. “If you're sure . . .”
“I'll be fine,” I said reassuringly, restraining myself from giving her a push. “Have a nice evening.”
I waited no more than a minute after I heard the door shut behind her, to rush down the stairs and try to salvage what was left of the meat.
It was almost completely cooked, I discovered as I cut slice after slice, frantically looking for small patches of red flesh. I nibbled on one small piece, pink in the middle, but it tasted like clay. I opened the kitchen door and tossed it, pan and all, into the small yard. Then I opened the doors and windows wide to clear the odor and sat down on the porch steps.
The sun was setting and the autumn air growing chilly, but I did not feel the cold. I stared into the approaching night as if answers could be found there, in the darkness. Suddenly, I sensed the stealthy approach of something nearing my house. I tensed and listened, relaxing when I picked up the soft padding of paws and the quiet breathy pants. The creature slowly came into view. It was a dog, a stray by the looks of the ribs showing through its fur. I could still smell the odor of the roast in the air; it was this that had brought him so near. “You have it, dog,” I said quietly. “It does me no good.” He sidled past me and fell to devouring the meat savagely.
When he had finished, he looked at me questioningly, with a half wag of his tail. “No, boy, there's no more. Come here.” Surprisingly, he came right to me, and with one sniff of my opened hand, he settled in on the porch with me.
He rested his scruffy chin on my knee and I scratched his pointed ears. “It's a strange world, dog,” I confided to him, “where a mongrel like you can eat a fine meal, while I have to go hungry.”
He gazed at me with trusting eyes and his tail thumped with a hollow sound on the wooden porch planks. I began to cry, silent tears streaming coldly down my cheeks in the night air. He hunched over close to me, offering what comfort he could and I buried my face in his soft fur. Instinctively, without thought, I pushed aside his thick hair with my tongue and sank my teeth into his neck. He snarled softly, whined, then relaxed as I was rewarded with the thick, salty flow. I took no more than two or three swallows, when, in horror at what I had done, I jumped away from him. He stared up at me, with adoring eyes and weakly wagged his tail again.
“My God,” I whispered to the quiet night. “What have I become?”
I stood on the porch for a long time, staring into the darkness, searching my mind for answers to my questions. Finding none, I entered the house, softly closed the door and went upstairs to my father's room, where most of our books were kept.
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My father had been an avid reader of the horror literature of the time; by the time of his death he had accumulated quite an impressive collection, from potboilers to literary classics. One of my fondest childhood memories was his reading aloud from Shelley's
Frankenstein
or from one of Poe's short stories; I can still hear his voice echoing through the house quoting some dramatic passage. But he had other books which he would not read aloud. “Not suitable for a young lady,” he would say, putting those particular books aside, not permitting me to see them. It was these forbidden books that drew me to the shelves in his old room that night.
Frankenstein
or from one of Poe's short stories; I can still hear his voice echoing through the house quoting some dramatic passage. But he had other books which he would not read aloud. “Not suitable for a young lady,” he would say, putting those particular books aside, not permitting me to see them. It was these forbidden books that drew me to the shelves in his old room that night.
I opened his door, with a small shiver of anticipation, remembering the dream of that afternoon. The bed was empty, of course, but all else was as it had been when he was alive. The books on the shelves were dusty, but on the top shelf I found the one I sought. Opening the book, I began to read.
“CHAPTER 1âHow graves give up their dead, And how the night air hideous grows with shrieks!” . . .
I completed it that night, huddled in a corner. When I was finished, I sighed and hugged my knees to my chest. If the whole idea wasn't quite so ludicrous, I thought, it would make sense. So many things were explained: the odd hunger for blood, the sharpened teeth, the aversion to food and sunlight. I stood up and began to pace the room.
It's ridiculous, I thought again. How could such a thing happen? There had been no demon materializing; no beastlike creature perched on my window sill. I could remember nothing that could explain this situation. But with a sudden shock, I recalled the dream, the hungry mouth fastening on my neck with a terrible desire, the mocking laughter, the man-sized black evilness that claimed my body and soul in a star-lit field.
“It was only a dream,” I whispered, shaking with fear. “Nothing more than a dream.”
I went to the window and pulled aside the heavy drapes. The sun was just beginning to rise and I looked at the lightening sky with hope and relief. “So,” I said aloud, “it can't be true.” But even as I said it, I felt the rays of the sun burn into my exposed skin, reddening and blistering it as I watched. I had not the courage to endure the pain; I drew the drapes shut again and collapsed, crying on the floor.
It took many months for the horrible realization of what I had become to sink into my consciousness. I defied the conventions that had been established for one of my kind. The walls of the house abounded with mirrors and crucifixes; the first infallibly reflecting my image and the latter evoking, not the loathing and fear that would be expected, but rather compassion and a yearning toward the redemption they represented. Standing at the window, I would greet the dawn until the pain of my burning flesh could not be tolerated. Upon waking the next evening, I would discover that the burns had healed, leaving no trace of their ravaging of my skin.
Some compulsions I could not deny: the sleep of the day and the call of the night, together with the taking of blood. With each dose of blood, my powers of night vision, hearing and the heightened awareness of the world surrounding me increased along with the intolerance of light, especially sunlight.
The dog continued to make his visits to my back porch once or twice a week and we fed each other, until one night he failed to come. I wondered about his absence; we had become companions of a sort and the relationship was satisfying for both of us. But my worries over the dog were soon replaced by others more pressing. The first was how to keep my bizarre transformation from Mrs. Blake; the second more profound and unsettling. I was beginning to suspect that the blood of animals could not completely fulfill my hunger; eventually I knew I would have to turn to humans for my sustenance.
Mrs. Blake died of pneumonia that winter; her death solved both of my problems. Though it was not of my doing, I deeply regretted both her death and my feeling of relief when it occurred. She had been good to me and had helped me through those bad months; yet her visits had become troublesome. Her presence in a room would make me frantic with rage and lust. I could smell the blood within her veins and it would take every shred of control I had to keep her at a distance. She was confused at my seeming coldness toward her, which I could not explain. And when I received word of her death, it was too late for explanations. I could not attend her funeral, for the day was sunny though cold and I could not risk prolonged exposure. Instead, I visited the graveyard that evening, bearing with me roses cut from my now overgrown garden.
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