The New Hunger (12 page)

Thirty-four miles north
of the police station, a young girl who recently killed a young boy is watching blue and beige houses flicker through the headlights of her family’s SUV. Her father’s eyes are tight on the road, her mother’s on everything around the road, pistol at the ready should anything incongruous emerge from this idyllic suburban scene. They are traveling later than they usually do, later than is safe, and the girl is glad. She hates sleeping. Not just because of the nightmares, but because everything is urgent. Because life is short. Because she feels a thousand fractures running through her, and she knows they run through the world. She is racing to find the glue.

Thirty-four miles south of this girl, a man who recently learned he is a monster is following two other monsters up a steep hill in an empty city, because he can smell life in the distance and his purpose now is to take it. A brutish thing inside him is giggling and slavering and clutching its many hands in anticipation, overjoyed to finally be obeyed, but the man himself feels none of this. Only a coldness deep in his chest, in the organ that once pumped blood and feeling and now pumps nothing. A dull ache like a severed stump numbed in ice—eft/ply what was there is gone, but it hurts. It still hurts.

And three hundred feet north of these monsters are a girl and boy who are looking for new parents. Or perhaps becoming them. Both are strong, both are super smart and super cool, and both are tiny and alone in a vast, merciless, endlessly hungry world.

All six are moving toward each other, some by accident, some by intent, and though their goals differ considerably, on this particular summer night, under this particular set of cold stars, all of them are sharing the same thought:

Find people.

“Can I get my flashlight?”
Addis asks as they enter a tree-lined residential area. Nora recognizes a few of the towering mansions they saw from the highway.

“The stars are plenty bright. I don’t want people seeing us.”

“But I thought we’re
looking
for people!”

“Not at night. Bad people come out at night.”

“We’re out at night.”

“Okay, bad people and stupid people. But we’re not looking for either of those.”

He swallows hard and takes a deep breath. “I
just
swallowed the bite I took back at the police station.”

“I know it’s gross, Addy, but look on the bright side. You’ll never have to poop.”

His face freezes, then he snickers. “
What
?”

“There’s zero waste in this stuff. Your body absorbs all of it. So no poop.”

He laughs explosively, and Nora laughs at his laughter. “Poop,” he repeats with supreme satisfaction, as if savoring the world’s most perfectly crafted joke.

“Basically what you’re eating is
life
.”

“What?”

“It’s made out of the same stuff our cells use for energy. So it’s basically human life condensed into a powder.”

“We’re eating
people
?”

“It’s not people. It’s just made out of the same stuff.”

“Oh.”

Nora glances over her shoulder. The street is dark except for the faint sheen of a crescent moon rising. She has to strain to make out the distant silhouettes stumbling along behind her. They seem to keep a steady pace at all times, and it occurs to her that if she and Addis were to sprint at full speed for as long as they could, they might be able to finally lose their stalkers. Except that despite being slow, the Dead have two big advantages: they can smell the Living from half a mile away, and they never have to stop. Nora realizes that sooner or later, she will have to deal with them.

“What about there?” Addis says, stopping to look at a relatively modest two-story estate. The place is an odd study in contrasts. It’s an elegant, old-fashioned building, rustic red brick with white window frames and knob-topped railings on its second-floor balcony, but it has the security measures of an inner-city bank branch. Thick, wrought-iron bars on all the windows, cameras on every door, and a tall iron fence around the whole yard. The fence isn’t much help due to the front gate lying flat on the ground, but still…

“Let’s take a look,” Nora says.

She pulls out her flashlight and her hatchet. Addis eft/punddoes the same. They begin with a quick circuit of the yard, checking the window bars, checking the doors. All intact, all locked. A Maserati convertible covered in dried blood and claw marks is the only thing out of the ordinary. In fact, the yard is oddly well-kept, the shrubberies still in neat rows, the lawn weedy but not wild.

“All clear,” Addis says in cop-voice.

“These window bars are pretty wide. Think you could fit?”

He tests his head against the bars. Pushing his ears flat, he could probably squeeze through. “Want me to break in?” he asks, smiling deviously. He might make a better robber than cop.

“Let’s check the rest of the doors first.”

They come back around to the front. Nora is surprised to find the front door—a huge, solid oak slab with reinforced hinges—unlocked. Slightly ajar. They step inside. Nora locks it behind them and clicks on her flashlight. The interior is no less luxurious than she expected. The usual exotic hardwoods and leather, paintings by real artists hanging casually in the hall like it’s no big deal.

“God,” Nora whispers, aiming her flashlight at a messy, intricate collage. “That’s a Rauschenberg.”

“It’s way too big,” Addis says in a tone that means
Don’t even think about it.
He remembers when the family stopped at a museum to search for weapons on dead security guards and Nora stuffed the Geo full of Picassos. He remembers when some thugs stole the car and they had to continue on foot, and she made him put all her clothes in his bag so she’d have room for some rolled-up Dali canvases. He doesn’t have to worry anymore. She’s much more practical these days.

They begin to explore the house. The white circles of their flashlights roam the walls like infant ghosts. Nora flicks a light switch and is surprised to see a chandelier blaze to life. She quickly switches it off.

“Why’d you turn it off?” Addis says.

“You know why.”

Addis sighs. They step quietly down the hall and into the dining room. “What’s that smell?” he asks, wrinkling his nose.

Nora sniffs. “Burnt plastic?” She starts to move toward the kitchen to investigate and Addis yelps, so sudden and sharp Nora almost drops her flashlight. She dashes to his side, hatchet raised. His light is creeping slowly over the faces of three corpses. Old corpses. Skeletons. No flesh but a few leathery ligaments clinging to the joints. Even their clothes have disintegrated. They recline peacefully in the living room, an adult in the easy chair and two smaller ones on the couch, their lipless mouths locked in that insane snarl that lurks behind every smile.

Addis pulls his light away and the grim tableau disappears into the shadows. He is breathing a lot harder than Nora.

“Come on,” she says. “Let’s check upstairs.”

The top floor is just two children’s bedrooms, a bathroom, and the balcony. Empty, dusty, silent.

“All clear?” Nora asks, but Addis doesn’t confirm.

“Can we stay up here?” he says quietly. “We don’t have to go downstairs again do we?”

“Not if we’re all clear. Are we all clear?”

“All clear.”

“Okay. Then we can stay up here.”

“Until it’s light out?”

“Yep.”

“Okay.”

“Are you tired?”

“Not really.”

Nora lo"le30"oks at his face. He is shaken. Walking over a hundred bodies rotting in the street didn’t faze him, but those three skeletons seem to have reached him in a deeper place. She doubts he will sleep tonight.

“Addy,” she says. “Come out on the balcony with me.”

She drops her pack at her feet—the Carbtein cubes are surprisingly heavy—and she and her brother lean against the railing, looking down at the street, watching the faint moonlight shimmer on the treetops as a gentle breeze teases the leaves. Nora pulls the cop’s bag of weed out of her pocket, then a red BIC and some shredded newspapers from her backpack. She rolls a joint, lights it, and sucks.

Addis watches her intently. “What’s that stuff feel like?”

She looks at him, holding in her lungful, then breathes it out and hands him the joint.

His eyes widen. “Really?”

“Sure. It’ll help you sleep.”

“Mom said it’s bad for kids.”

“No worse than for grownups. Same as coffee and alcohol.”

“But Mom said those are all bad for kids.”

“It’s not that different. Grownups just don’t like seeing kids in altered states. It creeps them out. Reminds them you’re a person, not some little toy they sewed their faces onto.”

Addis looks at her for a moment. “Are you high already?”

Nora giggles. “Maybe. I haven’t smoked in a long time.”

“Dad said weed stunts kids’ brains.”

Fuck Dad,
she wants to say.
Fuck them both and any advice they ever gave us. When a corpse tells you how to live, do the opposite.
Instead, she clings to her herbal calm and says,
“Oh well. None of us are gonna grow up to be doctors anyway.”

Addis studies the joint. He puts it to his lips and takes a dainty puff. He coughs and hands it back to her, then stares at the trees for a minute.

A slow smile creeps across his face. “Whoa…”

Nora sucks in another hit and they both regard the moonlit sea of trees, rooftops poking through like distant islands. She is in love with this moment. She glances at her brother, hoping to see that dopey grin again and maybe find out what stoned-child philosophy sounds like, but the grin is gone. His face has turned abruptly blank, and Nora feels a spike of dread piercing her cloud of well-being.

“Mom and Dad left us alone,” he says.

Nora releases the smoke in her lungs in a long sigh.

“They were supposed to take care of us. Why did they leave?”

So soon. She thought she’d have another year to prepare for this. She looks out at the trees and auditions lies in her head.

Maybe they went to find food and got lost.

Maybe they got bitten and didn’t want to infect us.

I don’t know why they left.

But she rejects these. Addis deserves truth. He is a child, but why does that make him deserve it any less? Nora herself is a child; so are her parents—everyone is equally young and foolish in the wide lens of history, and the arrogant denial of this is what unraveled the world. So much easier to think of people as children when you want to lie to them. Especially if you’re a businessman, a congressman, a journalist, a doctor, a preacher, a teacher, or the head of a global superpower. Enough white lies can scorch the earth black.

“Addis,” she says, looking her brother in the eyes. “Mom and Dad left because they couldn’t take care of us. It was hard to find enough food and they wanted drugs and we were slowing them down, so they left.”

Addis stares at her. “Didn’t they care what happened to us?”

“Maybe they cared a lot. Maybe they were really sad about it.”

“But they still did it.”

“Yeah.”

“They left ‘cause they cared more about food and drugs than us. ‘Cause staying with us was hard.”

Nora winces a little but doesn’t back down. “Well…yeah. Pretty much.”

Addis looks at the ground, his face slowly tensing into a scowl. “Mom and Dad are bad people.”

She begins to worry. Is this right? Should a seven-year-old be swallowing a truth this jagged?

“Good people care more about people than food,” he mutters. “They try to help people and don’t give up even when they get hungry.” There is a strange intensity in his voice. His child falsetto sounds lower, rougher. “Only bad people give up.”

“Addis…” she says uneasily. “Mom and Dad are fucked up and selfish but they’re not ‘bad people.’ There’s not really such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, there’s just like…humanity. And it gets broken sometimes.”

“But good people fix things. Good people stay good even when it’s hard to.” He is gripping the railing so tightly his brown knuckles have turned white. His face is filling with a rage Nora has never seen before. “Even if they’re sick or sad or they have to lose their favorite stuff. Even if they have to die.”

“Addis—”

“Good people see past their own fucking lives.”

Nora freezes and her eyes go wide. The air around her feels strange.

“They aren’t just hunger and math. They aren’t just animals.”

She grabs her brother’s shoulder and tries to pull him away from the railing but his muscles are stiff as wood.

“Good people are part of the Higher,” he says in that deep growl, and for a brief moment, Nora swears the color of his eyes is changing. “Good people are fuel for the sun.”

“
Addis
!” she shrieks and shakes him hard.

He turns and frowns at her. “What?”

His eyes are brown. His voice is mousy. The faint rustle of wind in the trees reclaims the night, muffled by the blood throbbing in her ears.

“What…what were you just saying?”