Hunger (11 page)

"'How are you,' they ask, and they never really want an answer. No one wants to hear about how people are slowly dying a little more every day."

Lisa, unsure of what to say, held her tongue.

"People are hypocrites," Pestilence said. "It sickens me."

"Um." What did one say to someone like him? "Are you here because they're sick?"

"Of course." He looked down his nose at her. "Much as you're here because they're starving. Famine and Pestilence work well together. We always have."

"Oh?" She pasted a smile on her face to hide her disgust.

"Look at these villagers," he said, motioning with a white-gloved hand. "Normally self-sufficient, they had once again planned on their crops to support themselves. But then the bamboo flowered. Life," he said with a smirk. "Life begets all evils of the world."

Oh boy.
Lisa's smile slipped. "Bamboo flowers?" She'd thought bamboo was a reed. Her mother had a collection of bamboo baskets.

"And with the flowers came the rats."

Lisa shuddered.

"And the rats, once here, feasted on bamboo, on maize, on all manner of crops. Entire fields, destroyed overnight." His pink-rimmed eyes glistened either with disease or with tears. "With no crops, the people gather what they can. Yams, dug out in the jungle. Bananas, too, when they're lucky. Roots and leaves."

"And rats," Lisa whispered.

"And rats," he agreed. "And that's when they're fortunate enough to have food to go around. When they don't, they starve."

"
How about a slice of toast?
"her father had asked her just this morning. And she'd said no, because the Thin voice had warned her that the toast was eighty calories. Once again, Lisa thought she would vomit.

"Children die soonest," Pestilence said, "as do the elderly and the sick. Even if they don't die of hunger, they suffer from diarrhea and gastritis, which in this place leads to death. With no crops to sell, there is no money to buy mosquito netting, and so at night their bodies are a feast for mosquitoes. And in the morning they awaken with malaria. Yes," he said, "Famine and Pestilence have always worked well together. And we pave the way for Death. We are Death's harbingers."

Her head spinning from the White Rider's words, Lisa said, "And War is Death's handmaiden."

"War," Pestilence said, sneering. He spat noisily, and where his spittle landed, the ground sizzled. "War sees this all as a glorious battle."

"It's ... not?"

He shot her a pitying look. "A horseman is one who rides a horse. There's nothing in the description that calls us to arms."

"Then..." She looked at the burial, then back at the White Rider. "Did you cause the sickness here?"

He snorted. "Did you cause the famine?"

"Of course not," she said, shocked.

"Like you, I was drawn here. We don't cause the ills of the world, little Famine."

"Then ... what are we supposed to do?"

"
Do?
" A horrific smile oozed along his face. "A thousand rats destroyed this village practically overnight. The Great Pestilence wiped out more than seventy-five million people in the fourteenth century. Smallpox killed more than three hundred million people in the twentieth century." He paused, searching her face. "What makes you think those numbers couldn't have been higher?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Do you have any idea how easy it would be for a plague to annihilate all of humanity?" he said drolly. "Especially these days, with scientists mucking about in their labs, all those diseases lined up like toy soldiers?"

She could picture it all too easily.

"I am quite busy keeping things in check, thank you very much." Pestilence brushed at his collar, as if to flick away the dusty aura surrounding him. "You'd think I sit around, whiling away my time eating chocolates."

Hershey's Kisses
, the Thin voice said.
Twenty-five calories.

Shut up
, Lisa scolded.

Amazingly, the Thin voice fell silent. Lisa had never stood up to it before.

"Unlike War," Pestilence said with a sneer, "my duty is both local and global. Disease is rampant, pandemic. The Spanish flu killed twenty million people around the world. More than thirty-three million people have AIDS today."

Lisa's head swam as she tried to understand his words. "So you ... help people?"

"Well, if everyone dies, I'd be out a job, wouldn't I?"

She waved a hand at the villagers. "So help them! Cure them!"

His liquid gaze locked on to hers, and she thought he was trying to tell her something silently, implore her to action or to understanding.

"You know," he finally said, "you and I are very much alike."

The very notion nauseated her.

"Famine attacks people from without, destroying their food sources. Pestilence attacks from within, destroying their bodies. But whether from without or within, we achieve the same result. We destroy."

"What are you saying?"

"We are the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, little Famine. We don't cure people. We destroy. That's all we've ever done."

Lisa turned away from him. She didn't want him to see her cry. Slowly, the villagers buried their dead.

"As early as 200 B.C.," Pestilence said, "people experimented with vaccination. The Chinese, the Indians, the Turks; they all dabbled. Then came Edward Jenner, with his theory of milkmaids and cowpox. Humans have gone from gifting natives with smallpox blankets to eradicating smallpox completely. You see? People can fight using disease. Or they can inject themselves with it to cure themselves. But whichever path they choose, they first must understand disease intimately."

Lisa frowned.

"The first thing you must do, little Famine, is understand hunger."

She faced him, holding her chin high. "I think I already do."

He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "Indeed."

"So you're saying I don't have to hurt people?" she asked, her words hesitant. "I can help them? Somehow?"

He smiled again, twisting his face into a parody of mirth. "As I said, you and I are very much alike."

She looked down at her hands, remembered what she'd done at the restaurant just yesterday, at Joe's Diner the night before. "But how?"

"That you'll discover as you walk your path. Or," he said, "as you ride. We are Horsemen, after all."

"War said that my purpose was to get people to fight about food, and then she'd do the rest."

"Yes, well, War has been known to twist things her own way. She's the politician out of the four of us."

Lisa looked up at Pestilence on his white horse, like some mockery of a knight who'd come to save her. "What does that make you?"

"The philanthropist," he said, tipping an imaginary hat. With that, the White Rider nudged his steed, and both man and horse disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Lisa stayed until all six bodies were in the ground. When the last shovelful of dirt filled the pit, she quietly said a prayer for the dead. She wasn't a religious girl, but clearly there were powers out there; she and the other Horsemen were proof of that.

"God," she said somberly, "their deaths were stupid. Please welcome their souls to heaven, because they deserve better than what they got here." After a moment, she added, "And if you don't mind, help me figure out my path, like Pestilence said. Um, please. Because as messed up as I am, I don't want to mess up other people. Thank you. Amen."

As she and Midnight turned to leave, she thought she heard a familiar voice say, "Go thee out unto the world."

But when she looked around for Death's familiar face, she was alone.

The black horse set Famine down outside the human's house, as she'd requested. The steed had neighed its opinion—there were many other places that beckoned to them, areas ripe with abundance, where the horn of plenty was constantly sucked dry by gluttons—but even so, the horse did as its mistress had asked. It was loyal, even when its rider was foolish.

Really, a human's
house?
Why waste time with a bare handful of people when the entire world waited for Famine's touch? The horse snorted. Even after its millennia of existence, it would never, ever understand people.

It knelt so that Famine could dismount. After she did so, she patted its neck and murmured thanks as sweet to its ears as pralines to its tongue. Its previous rider had never been so considerate. Maybe it was because this rider was still young—and still human. Whatever the reason for the affection, the steed enjoyed Famine's attention.

The horse stood guard until its mistress entered the abode. Then it scanned the landscaped bushes, and its ears quivered when it spied a bright array of chrysanthemums. It trotted over to the autumn flowers and began to snack.

Not pralines, no. But still quite tasty.

***

Lisa should have known things would go sour when Tammy overreacted to Lisa's not bringing any of her homemade cookies.

"You promised," Tammy grumbled. "You said so yesterday, so I didn't go shopping today."
Shopping
was code for Tammy scouring the pantry, raiding it for store-brand cookies and packaged cakes and other sweets, for chocolate bars and pretzels and potato chips. Lisa knew that Tammy never actually went to the store to supply her binges; why should she, when her mother and sister—obese, the two of them—were all too happy to fill the shelves to capacity with junk food?

But like Lisa, Tammy had her rituals. And Lisa had blown it for her.

"I'm sorry," Lisa said again as Tammy searched the shelves for the foods she needed for binging. As always, Tammy was in control; even in the grip of her desire to stuff herself to the bursting point, she would only do so with specific foods. It was completely unlike what Lisa did whenever she would inevitably cave and eat (and eat and eat; whenever she gave in, it was as if her stomach were a bottomless pit). During those bleak times, Lisa went with whatever food had seduced her—a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of potato bread, a bag of chocolates. Lisa had no control. Tammy, however, had a particular routine. Even now, pissed off as all get out, she exuded confidence, determination.

"Uh-huh." Tammy slammed cabinet doors, stormed through the kitchen, spewing venom as if to prepare herself for spewing food. "No warning, no prep time. And my mom will be home in ninety minutes."

Mortified, Lisa said again, "Sorry."

"It was totally thoughtless of you." Tammy glared at Lisa. "What, did your guy come over and distract you?"

"Something like that," Lisa muttered.

"Next time, don't make promises if you're not going to keep them."

Abashed, Lisa watched Tammy as the girl pulled out various foods from various places. Normally, she would have been horrified by the thought of letting Tammy down. But even though Lisa felt bad about forgetting her promise, there were other things occupying her mind. She was still wounded from James and Suzanne working together to attack her, and still very uneasy from her meeting with Pestilence.

And she smelled death
everywhere.
It was as if the odor had permeated her skin. She'd tried scrubbing her hands when she'd first arrived at Tammy's place, but the smell lingered, subtle, insidious—a reminder that life meant death, that satisfaction was fleeting.

Balance, Death had told her. Like the Scales she had ... somewhere. Could she summon them right now? Would Tammy even see them? What would happen if Tammy touched them?

Worse, what if Lisa brandished her symbol of office ... and used that power against her friend, the way she nearly had against her father and the others? The way she had yesterday at a restaurant in another part of the world?

What if War showed up?

Troubled, Lisa said, "Maybe I should go."

Tammy stiffened, then turned to face her. "Hey, look. I'm sorry. I know, I'm bitchy today." She offered Lisa a sheepish smile. "It's that time of the month, you know? My stomach's all wonky."

Of course, that has nothing to do with all of the binging and purging.

Lisa bit down on that thought, shoved it away. What on earth was wrong with her? It wasn't like her to judge Tammy. She did her best to always be considerate. "Sure," she said, giving Tammy a smile in return. "Look, if you want, I can head back, pick up the cookies..."

"No, it's all right. I found where Mom keeps the good ones." Grinning, she held up a package of cookies. "Not like freshly baked, but hey, beggars and choosers."

It took her almost twenty minutes, but finally Tammy made her selections while Lisa watched. The girls chatted lightheartedly, but it was all audible flotsam. Tammy's concentration was on choosing foods. Lisa was just filling the silence.

Tammy scooped all of the foods she'd picked into a plastic bag, and then the girls headed into Tammy's bedroom. Lisa, familiar with the routine, shut the door behind them, even though they had the house to themselves. "You never know when someone's coming around," Tammy liked to say.

On Tammy's bed—full-size, unlike Lisa's twin, and not a hint of pink to be found—Lisa watched as her friend arranged her junk food in a row near the pillows: potato chips, cupcakes, chocolate bar, cookies, frosting. Tammy put a carton of milk on the floor.

"Skim milk," Lisa noted.

"Mom's out of the two percent," Tammy replied, shrugging. She turned on her television and flicked through the channels until she settled on one particular show that Lisa didn't recognize. Onscreen, a handsome flavor of the day made insipid remarks to a laugh track. Satisfied, Tammy settled down by the head of the bed and dug into her stash, ripping open a bag of chips.

By the foot of the bed, Lisa watched Tammy from the corner of her eye. Fascinated by the culinary train wreck, Lisa watched her friend peripherally, quietly enjoying how the Thin voice was utterly silent. As usual, Lisa timed Tammy's binge.

Potato chips, chased with milk. Seven minutes. Lisa wondered if Tammy tasted the food as she ate, if the skim milk made the chips taste like crunchy mashed potatoes. Every sound that Tammy made grated in Lisa's ears: the chomping, the gulping, the swallowing. It shouldn't bother her, she told herself. She watched the television screen and schooled her face to impassivity.