Dead Hungry

Dead Hungry

Louis Arata

Copyright 2013 Louis Arata

All rights reserved.

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All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN:

ISBN-13: 978-1301312764

For Kathy

The one whom my soul loves

Table of Contents

Chapter One: First Response

Chapter Two: Dead Dogs and Levees

Chapter Three: Into the Breach

Chapter Four: Found Footage

Chapter Five: Tastes Like Chicken

Chapter Six: Flesh Wound

Chapter Seven: Mystery Meat

Chapter Eight: Empty Coffin

Chapter Nine: GRATEFUL

Chapter Ten: Pavlov’s Dogs

Chapter Eleven: Detritus

Chapter Twelve: The Feast of St Stephen

Chapter Thirteen: The Uncanny Valley

Chapter Fourteen: A Pound of Flesh

Chapter Fifteen: Bottom-Feeder

Chapter Sixteen: Mercy Fuck

Chapter Seventeen: Twisted Christmas

Chapter Eighteen: Lock-Down

Chapter Nineteen: Bloodbath

Chapter Twenty: Demand & Supply

Chapter Twenty-One: El Saturno

Chapter Twenty-Two: Road-Kill

Chapter Twenty-Three: Fluffy Bunny

Chapter Twenty-Four: Amazon

Chapter Twenty-Five: Bred in the Bone

Acknowledgments

About The Author

Chapter One: First Response

DON’T TELL me that movie didn’t suck, because it did. It was so way like that other movie with the killer in that shitty mask trying to be all Jason, but it’s also like that Wes Craven flick, you know, all self-referential, but this one, this movie, this was just crap!

Freddie combusted with caffeinated energy, his spiky red hair a halo of fire. Enveloped in two oversized t-shirts and a flannel shirt, he wore a belt almost a foot too long, and his boxers jutted over his waistband. He tried to agitate Tucker and Darien into the same state of stunned disbelief.

Can’t they come up with one frigging original idea, just once? Like we don’t know the main chick’s going to be some tough Barbie who stabs the psycho with his own ice pick. And of course you know! You know he’s going to pop up again. Boo! Ooh, I’m scared, he’s still alive! Shit, like we haven’t seen that a bazillion times before!

Freddie turned to Tucker. Come on, admit it. It was shit. Right? It was shit.

Yes, it was shit.

Thank you! Freddie took a victory lap around his friends. To celebrate, he dodged into traffic like a crazed prophet. Skip this movie! It sucked! He gestured wildly at the movie theater.

Freddie’s antics reminded Tucker of Kevin McCarthy at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, warning travelers that they’re here, they’re here, you’re next. Grinning, he threw an arm over Freddie’s shoulder and guided him down the street.

Freddie proceeded to rave about overlooked classics such as Hell Hounds II: Bark Until Dark and Field of Screams, which were so much better than tonight’s Chop ‘Til You Drop. Great title, stooopid story, he said.

Of course it’s stupid, said Tucker. What did you expect? Movies like this aren’t about creativity; they’re about what sells. Sexy women, violent stalkers, grisly deaths.

Don’t forget stupid puns as titles, said Darien.

No movie like this is going to have an original thought in its head. It’s movie-making by cliché. Stick enough familiar elements together, market it to teenage boys, and you make enough money for a sequel.

Exactly, exactly! exclaimed Freddie, as though his ranting had made the same point. They could be sooo much smarter if they did something cool.

You’re the one who picked the movie, said Darien.

Yeah, but still.

A hazy film of car exhaust permeated Chicago’s humid night air. Up and down Michigan Avenue, skyscrapers formed a glistening cavern. Tucker steered his friends onto the plaza next to the Tribune Tower, its neo-Gothic design infested with gargoyles watching from flying buttresses. Freddie ran ahead to pretend-skateboard along the lip of a stone planter.

Next time, I choose the movie, Darien said privately to Tucker. No more horror, okay? How can you stomach it?

It’s all fodder for the dissertation.

You don’t really like them, do you? Darien shook his head in distaste. You heard the guys behind us, right? Laughing their heads off when the killer cut out that girl’s tongue.

Tucker shrugged. Horror gets more intense as violence becomes more permissible to show, but does it ever really change? The same things still scare us.

Since when does seeing people get butchered become entertainment?

All I want is to figure out why people enjoy a good scare. That pleasant chill of fear. Movies are a safe way to experience that. You’re not really in danger, even if you feel scared.

Okay, I can see that’s why you watch horror movies. But Freddie?

He’s about the gross-out factor. He’s got that catalog of all the different ways people get maimed in movies.

Darien laughed. He’s a psycho.

"I don’t think he makes a connection between a real serial killer and the killer in Chop ‘Til You Drop. For him, they are two completely different animals. He’s a goofball, but in-between his ranting and raving, sometimes he’s got a little insight."

Kind of hard to believe, Darien murmured. Up ahead Freddie was executing fake skateboard maneuvers that drew cheers from a nonexistent crowd.

As they crossed the plaza, Tucker looked up the height of the Tribune Tower, where bricks from other structures were embedded – Nidaros Cathedral, Corregidor, Lincoln’s Tomb. A motley assemblage of world-wide symbols. One piece, like an impressionist bird in flight, was a ribbon-shaped beam from the World Trade Center.

A fragment of sobriety stuck in his chest. It seemed silly to lambast a crummy movie when there were reminders of truly horrific moments embedded in the landscape. Tucker’s parents had told him stories of where they’d been when Kennedy was shot or the Berlin Wall came down; when protestors went up in flames in Tianamen Square, or the Challenger exploded over Texas. Events became mythic as they settled into the collective consciousness: a specific date pinned to a generation’s sleeve.

Tucker had been in freshman English when the news came. His teacher, typically unflappable, told everyone to go to the gym. As they filed from the room, Tucker joked with his friends that it was an impromptu pep rally or a Scared Straight seminar. That’s when his teacher choked up, and they knew it was serious.

Tucker had never grasped the concept of shared experience before, not until the enormity of the terrorist attack. He had watched footage of the buildings disintegrating. They were there, and then they weren’t. For weeks afterwards, even though he had no direct connection to any deaths, he felt a hole in his heart that bled and bled and never emptied. He knew what personal tragedy was: the death of his sister. But some events were too big to comprehend. They didn’t make sense. They couldn’t make sense.

Now, compared to the raw truth of September 11th, tonight’s horror movie attained a new degree of idiocy.

They headed down to the Loop to a pub for a late night beer. Tucker liked seeing the city lit up along the river. The Wrigley Building glowed in sugar-coated cheerfulness, and behind it loomed the glass visage of Trump Tower. Near the DuSable Bridge, a saxophonist played an endless iteration of Auld Lang Syne.

Freddie ran ahead to lean over the rail to watch the river. He pushed himself far out, balancing precariously, his feet poised like a counterweight. It unnerved Tucker to see him carelessly risking himself. He wanted to run up and catch him, but by the time he got close, Freddie had run ahead to the next intersection. Tucker had to shake off his nerves.

Further south, they passed under the El tracks on Wabash Avenue. Heavy shadows formed a subterranean world. When a train roared overhead, its cars thumping, it was like a monster rising from its lair. Street lamps couldn’t cut through the grimy residue staining the buildings. Retail stores, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, featured generic posters for kitschy clothes and jewelry. In second and third-story windows, bright neon signs advertised Tarot readings, yoga and massage.

The street stretched empty and dark. Apart from the El trains, Freddie remained the greatest source of noise. He kept mercilessly teasing Darien about the movie. You had your eyes closed the whole damn time!

Darien refused to be taunted. I saw it. Though I wish I hadn’t.

Just then, Freddie jumped back a foot. Holy shit!

A big rat bolted from an alley. It moved so fast, it registered only as fluid motion. In the middle of the street, it halted to pick at litter flattened in the road.

A delivery van came through the intersection and crushed it. In an instant it went from being a rat to being a glossy, steaming, lumpy thing. Its leg twitched twice before becoming still.

Oh god, Tucker thought.

Freddie slapped Darien’s arm. Come on, he said, jogging toward the furry gob. He hunkered down next to it. Poor devil never had a chance.

Don’t be gross.

Probably working late to support the wife and kids. I sure hope he had insurance. Notify the next of kin! Freddie pinched one of the snapped legs and waved it at his friends. In a squeaky voice, he said, Officer, I saw the whole thing! He was drunk, I tell you, drunk!

Freddie, leave it alone.

Wiping his hands on his jeans, Freddie trumpeted a doleful Taps. Tucker hated to admit he wanted to laugh. Catching Freddie’s arm, he moved him away from the mess. With a second glance at the rat, Tucker felt surprisingly disturbed, as if he’d witnessed a drive-by shooting.

Then something else emerged from the alley. Much larger, it shambled onto the sidewalk. Darkness hid the face, and the body was hefty with layers of soiled clothes. Without a visible face, he seemed less than human. A zombie, something Undead.

The man appeared not to see them; he cut across their path at a leaden gait. Tucker gave him a wide berth, while Freddie, more fascinated than brave, hunched over to peer up into the man’s face. Hey dude, what’s happening?

Darien tried a gentle approach. Hey, man. No response. To Tucker, he said, We need to do something. He needs help.

Tucker wasn’t sure what to do. Something didn’t feel right. The man moved through his own world, disconnected from reality. What emanated from him, maybe a form of psychosis, was more than Tucker could handle. All he wanted was to get his friends to safety.

Freddie walked directly up to the man. Looking to get tanked, blotto, piss-faced? You need some change? He rummaged loose coins from his pocket.

Tucker stopped him. Freddie protested, Hey, I’m being a good Samaritan is all.

The homeless man, visible beneath a street light, was probably white, except his skin was grimy and his beard too thick to tell. His clothes peeled like the skin of a rotting onion, his boots held together with packing tape. His overcoat had an oily sheen, like city streets after a rainstorm. Unconscious of their presence, he walked like a discarded clockwork winding down.

He circled in the street, closing in on the dead rat. No cars were coming, yet even if they were, he paid no attention to his surroundings. He crouched over the rat.

It was time to do something; Tucker couldn’t simply walk away. Clearly the man didn’t recognize the danger of wandering in traffic at night, in Chicago. Tucker took a step toward him then stopped.

The man was eating the rat.

Darien came up beside Tucker. We should get him to a shelter. Isn’t there one on State?

Let’s go. Now.

But now Darien saw it too, and without hesitation, he ran straight at the man and shoved him over, and still he ate, protective as a feral dog over his meal.

Darien pleaded, Stop it! God, stop it! but the man made no effort to hide what he was doing. Holding the rat like a chicken breast, he tore it apart with his teeth.

Freddie giggled in shock just before he threw up.

Tucker wrestled Darien out of the way when a car was approaching. He was able to get him to the sidewalk, as the driver blasted his horn. And still the homeless man ate. Without slowing, the car swerved around him, its horn wailing into silence.

Each moist mouthful made Tucker shudder. His stomach revolted, making him wish he could throw up like Freddie. Darien remained braced against him, pushing to get back to the man, to stop him, but soon the fight went out of him.

Freddie stepped forward with his cell phone to capture it on video. Abruptly Tucker knocked his arm down. Hey!

Still, he recorded the incident, and Tucker hesitated, not knowing what to do. It was sick to capture these images, and yet he didn’t prevent Freddie from taking them. Was it wrong to film it? Maybe they could show it to the authorities so they could help the man. Maybe police, social services, doctors, someone would know what to do. But Freddie’s leering grin made it more about voyeurism.

Unable to stand it longer, Tucker pushed Freddie around the corner, toward State Street. They passed through alternating street lights and shadows cut to razor-sharp edges, every object immovably dense: trash containers, newspapers boxes, sign posts. As Tucker hurried his friends past clothing stores, their reflections in the opaque windows tracked them like wolves. Movement was crucial; Tucker was relentless to get them as far away as possible, until Darien pointed out they had passed the Red Line station.

At the top of the stairs, they stopped. None of them knew what to say. Man, Darien muttered through a heavy sigh. The sound of a human voice broke the tension, freeing them to breathe again.

I, uh, was surprised, Freddie laughed weakly, indicating the vomit on his jeans.

We’d better get home, said Tucker. You okay?

Darien nodded vaguely.

Bleached and unsteady, Freddie swung around to point at a stray cat disappearing under a parked car. Hey look! Dessert.

Shut up.

Just a joke, dude.

They took the next train heading north. After directing Freddie and Darien to take the remaining seats – needing them secure in their seats – Tucker leaned against a metal post. As his body relaxed to the rhythm of the train, he found himself narrating the incident to himself, practicing how he would tell the story, turning it into an anecdote. Hiding behind the safety of words, he could overlook the brutal truth – that a homeless man was forced to eat a rat to survive. Tucker breathed deeply through his nose, collecting the sour smell of the train as a means to distract himself. He should have done something to help the man. He watched Freddie talking to Darien; the ratcheting noise of the train masked their conversation. At least Freddie wasn’t pale anymore. Darien was harder to read; he was probably upset but wouldn’t show it.

What was most important was to get his friends home safely. The train took them far from the scene of the crime. Tucker balked. Was it a crime? Weren’t they morally obligated to intervene? But what if the man had turned violent?

I saw a man eat a rat. That was what he would tell people. The statement gave him more of a chill than any moment in Chop ‘Til You Drop. It was like watching the World Trade Center fall.

He shook his head. Was it really akin to September 11th? No, but he didn’t have another comparison to make. The fact that he had shared this experience with Freddie and Darien gave it a communal tone, different than seeing his sister die; Stellie’s death was personal. This had been a public act, and he had failed to intervene.

He checked on Freddie and Darien. Darien kept still, his arms braced against his knees, his gaze focused on a metal vent. Freddie played with his cell phone. Proudly he held it up to Tucker to show him the video he’d captured. How could he be delighted with that? Like a little kid who couldn’t comprehend the bigger picture, he giggled to himself until a sour smell reminded him of the vomit on his jeans.

This shit has got to be shared, he announced as he sent it off to his friends.

That was it; Tucker couldn’t handle that he’d walked away. He tapped Darien on the shoulder and said they were going back. At the next station, they switched trains, heading south. Tucker was relieved that clearly Darien agreed with the plan. Behind them, unsure why they were doing this, Freddie tagged along.

They came out of the Red Line Station on State Street, and cut across to Wabash Avenue. The El tracks created a steel cavern that stretched ten blocks. They walked swiftly to the spot where they’d last seen the man, but of course, he wasn’t there. Tucker entered the street to find the spot where the rat had been crushed. Now there was only a smudge on the asphalt. Tucker’s heart sickened. The carcass had not been obliterated by traffic; it had been devoured – tiny bones, fur and all.

He looked around. No sign of the homeless man. Sighing, Tucker admitted the pointlessness of the quest. Was it better that they had at least tried? Small consolation.

Then Darien spotted the man, sitting beneath the Macy’s display windows. Now, at the point of confronting him, they doubted the best tactic to use. Cautiously they approached, half-hoping the man would run away. Instead, he sat there, utterly still, slumped in sleep.

Tucker made himself crouch beside him. Excuse me? he said softly. Do you need some help? His voice was barely loud enough to hear.

Darien knelt on the opposite side, and he looked at Tucker across the man. On his face were a dozen choices before he had the courage to touch the man’s arm. The man didn’t respond. He must have been sleeping heavily; that was what Tucker wanted to believe. The man’s stillness, however, warned them otherwise. The second time Darien touched him, his fingers had barely connected before the body toppled over.

They didn’t need to convince themselves that the man was dead, given that half his face had been eaten off.

Chapter Two: Dead Dogs and Levees

TUCKER’S BREAKFAST consisted of a large coffee that he nursed until it was cold and an untoasted bagel that he picked to pieces. Across from him, Freddie set down a plate of scrambled eggs with catsup, two doughnuts, and a bowl of granola and yogurt, which he handed down his gullet in unwieldy spoonfuls. The smacking, chewing and swallowing were meant to distract Tucker from his studies, but the guy could completely immerse himself in his dissertation. Today he was rereading Frankenstein. Freddie tried glugging Mountain Dew and emitting a prolonged belch. That didn’t work either. He was about to give up when Tucker sighed and pushed away his book. Score!

Two hours ‘til Spinelli, Tucker said.

Freddie shivered dramatically. That professor’s got no soul. Cold eyes, and that helmet of hair. I hear she eats undergrads for breakfast.

She’s not that bad. She’s a great advisor. I wouldn’t be so far in my dissertation without her.

"Hey! You gonna tell her about Chop ‘Til You Drop? Oh come on, man! It was so sick when that killer pulled out that girl’s intestines with that spear-thing."

Harpoon. Gory mutilations aren’t part of my dissertation.

How can you ignore the good stuff? Freddie piled the debris of his breakfast into the sink. You put in that part where the killer eats the girl’s tongue, and you’ll be on the right track. Grabbing his backpack, he headed for class.

Tucker tried to get back to work, but it was pointless. After examining his notes again, he pushed them aside. It was a monstrously weighty project – not the topic, but It, the dissertation itself, the Thing That Consumed Tucker’s Brain.

Eventually, he shoveled his books, notes, and computer into his backpack and headed to campus. Maybe the walk would clear his head. His thoughts kept drifting back to Saturday night to the homeless man, and how he might not be dead if they’d done something sooner.

Darien had called 911 right away, and when the police and ambulance came, they explained how they’d found him. The police recognized the man, Jeremy; he’d been on the street since his twenties. Couldn’t hold a job, had mental health issues, and no access to medication.

What had eaten Jeremy’s face? The denuded bone, the skin peeled back from cheek and eye socket, the gray teeth poking through. The police were skeptical about his eating a rat, until Freddie showed them the video. When Darien asked what they thought might have happened, an officer shrugged and said maybe the rats had the last laugh.

Tucker crossed the street but had to stop at a driveway because a minivan blocked the sidewalk. A pack of rusty-colored terriers bolted from the yard to lunge at Tucker’s shoes. Behind them came a woman with bright yellow hair and a turquoise track suit, a clear plastic handbag hooked on one arm. She muttered to herself, Hurry, got to hurry, as she ran directly into him.

Morning, Mrs Sheffley.

He was used to her jittery antics. The other day she had driven off with her handbag on top of her van, and last summer she’d fallen off a stepstool perched on top of a stepladder. Frantically she tried to herd her dogs back into the house, so Tucker helped her collect the last two.

Breathless, she thanked him and jumped into the van. As she backed out of the driveway, a wheel thumped, and there was a terrible squeal. Not all the dogs had made it into the house.

Mrs Sheffley jumped from the van. Seeing what she had done, she wailed and dropped helplessly beside the dog, its ribs crushed, its eyes squinted shut.

Gently taking her into the house, Tucker sat her at the kitchen counter. Uncertain what to do, he poured her a glass of water. The other fox terriers – he couldn’t tell if there were four or five – pranced under his feet, their nails like tap shoes on the tile. Their constant swarming forced him to brush them aside with his foot. He brought Mrs Sheffley a box of tissues. She was murmuring that she hadn’t seen Buster, and paused to bite the edge of her hand, until deep, red marks broke the skin. Carefully he extricated her hands and placed them on the countertop, out of harm’s way.

Tucker told her he would take care of it. Outside, the minivan’s engine hummed. He turned off the ignition and quietly shut the door.

Blood stained the driveway. The body looked like a cruelly rung-out rag. The head lay heavy next to the paws, and the hind quarters tilted at an unnatural angle. Tucker found a box of garbage bags in the garage and some old rags. Once the terrier was covered, he had the courage to touch it. It had a lopsided density and more weight than he anticipated. It was awkward getting it into the garbage bag.

He left the body in the garage, against the wall. Quietly returning to the kitchen, he found that Mrs Sheffley hadn’t moved, though her crying had softened. I put him in the garage.

She saw him for the first time. With great effort she thanked him. She clenched a wadded-up tissue to her nose. More teeth marks purpled her arm.

Uh, I’ve got to go, he said. He hated leaving her. When he got out to the sidewalk, the world felt wider and the air lighter. It was hard not to stare at the blood stains.

A bad week for animals, he thought.

He met Professor Spinelli for his biweekly meeting. Tall, broad in the hips, narrow in the shoulders, Lorraine Spinelli oppressed students with her gravel-edged voice. Freddie was right: her helmet of blonde-gray hair was as formidable as a battering ram.

As Tucker pulled his latest chapter from his backpack, Spinelli spied the copy of Frankenstein. Mass market edition. Huh.

I don’t want to be influenced by the editor’s notes? Tucker failed to sound as confident as he intended.

She skimmed the paperback for his handwritten notes in the margins. He tried not to watch while she read. She could hack through a spurious argument faster than a psycho through a summer camp.

Tucker was uncomfortably aware how liberally the pages were peppered with his notes about the Creature learning to read and speak, his discovery of the story of God and Adam, its parallel to his relationship with Victor Frankenstein. The Creature’s aching pathos at being labeled a monster by the small family he’d helped – that was a pivotal moment in horror fiction. It was the Creature’s fate to be shunned. Tucker thought it raised the question of normalcy and marginality: the Outsider.

At the bottom of a page, where the Creature exacts revenge by killing Victor’s younger brother, Tucker had written Jason?

He offered carefully, "Okay, um, that point there? Um, Jason from Friday the 13th? Um, I was thinking there was a connection with Frankenstein’s Creation?"

You asking me or telling me? Spinelli’s wry smile was a good sign; he drew courage.

"A couple months ago, my roommate Freddie was watching the entire Friday the 13th series, including the reboot they did in 2009."

Freddie? Freddie Forbes? Spinelli rolled her eyes. Go on.

Well, I watched some of it with him. Not that I like all that gore and stuff.

Her smile thinned, warning him to get to his point. Okay, um, it was in the fourth or fifth film, there’s a scene where Jason is stalking the woods for his next victim. And what struck me is that you could see him clearly. He wasn’t in shadow. The camera didn’t jump around or try to hide him. You could see him, hockey mask and all, with his big machete.

He instantly regretted the Freudian image of a monstrous penis hacking up women.

Big machete, said Spinelli, as if reading his thoughts. I get it. Go on. How does this relate to Shelley?

Well, in the novel the Creature terrorizes a village. He murders Victor’s brother and implicates a servant girl. But he doesn’t do this from wanton cruelty. It’s not a senseless killing. He’s got a purpose.

Spinelli tightened her brow: get to the point.

Here was the plunge. So, Jason is the physicalized boogeyman, stitched together from every teen’s worst fears. A hideously deformed face hidden behind an emotionless hockey mask. But the problem is, whenever the mask comes off, it’s anticlimactic. No matter how good the makeup, Jason looks disappointing face-to-face. Quasimodo, bad teeth, no nose. It looks almost comical. The hockey mask is the perfect facsimile of an emotionless, amoral, cold-hearted face. It represents complete indifference to the killings.

I’m with you.

But the Creature in Shelley’s novel only wants to be normal. He learns compassion and kindness. Knowing that he’s an outcast, it makes perfect sense that he wants a mate. You can sympathize with that sort of loneliness. Like when he helps that family, they first think he’s a benevolent forest spirit bringing them food and firewood. But once they see him, they cannot recognize the humanity underneath the grotesque features. It’s heartbreaking, really. On the other end of the spectrum, you have Jason. No humanity at all. So I was thinking that maybe audiences – readers and film-goers – don’t want monsters with morality. They want to be frightened by the Other. They don’t want the complexity of ambivalence or messy emotions. They want an artificial, stitched-together boogeyman without conscience. An irrational beast with an irrational need to kill. If someone ever bothered to justify Jason’s actions, he’d end up sympathetic and no longer able to frighten us. Audiences want to hate a villain; they want something outside the norm.

Interesting. So, how do you plan to bring these thoughts together?

Um, was all he could say.

Work it out, Smith. Show me how they connect.

He spent the rest of the afternoon prying out his rationale. For his dissertation, he wanted to examine the core element of horror: what scared people most. Not the delightful thrill or momentary adrenaline rush of being startled, but rather the unsettling sense that something was wrong. The Unheimlich, the Uncanny. Freud’s Id: those aspects of ourselves that the Superego desperately wants to keep in check, and how the horror genre taps into these hidden places by providing monsters that do the things ordinary people never would. Like Hannibal Lector savoring human liver with fava beans and Chianti.

Tucker’s mind drifted to the homeless man. What had eaten him? It was hard to believe that rats had done it. But what else could it have been?

Unable to think clearly anymore, he headed outside to lie in the cool grass. On the campus’s main quadrangle, students sought out sunshine to lessen the tediousness of studying. Nearby, a circle of students endeavored to speak French, either in rushed fragments or prolonged fumbling. Recalling his own efforts to learn languages, Tucker was sympathetically amused by these undergrads who would have chewed off their own feet to escape.

Que porterez-vous? C’est froid dehors.

J’ai un a tricot le bouchon, les gants et une écharpe.

Gardera-cela vous chauffe?

Oui.

Tucker recognized Darien’s voice. His roommate, at the apex of the circle like a linguistic guru, exhibited infinite patience while a guy strained to speak, J’ai aussi … J’ai aussi un … His eyes pleaded, but Darien remained implacable. After several interminable moments, he said, J’ai aussi un … overcoat … ?

Un pardessus, Riley.

Un pardessus. Dutifully Riley repeated the complete sentence. His confidence eroded, he pulled down his knit cap, wishing to disappear inside it.

Once students started tripping on vocabulary, they rarely recovered, so Darien dismissed the group. Bon. Je vous verrai jeudi, le meme temps, l’accord?

Great! I mean, oui, bon, uh, oui. Riley grabbed his backpack, ready to run. The other students were already gone. Riley hung back, hesitant to approach Darien personally. Uh, Monsieur Darien, ou est … ? Um, can I speak English now?

Oui. Since the guy didn’t get the joke, Darien said, Yes.

Um, am I going to get better at this, or like, am I wasting my time?

Don’t worry. You’ll get it. Practice the conversation on page forty-three.

Relieved, Riley jogged across the lawn to catch up with his friends. Darien collected his book bag and joined Tucker under an elm. He immediately gleaned the cause of Tucker’s beaten-down expression. Spinelli. What’s she got you doing this time?

"I told her about Friday the 13th and Frankenstein. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, but now I’m stuck trying to make it sound academic. What’s really tough is articulating what the hell I mean. I’ve been going over different definitions of scariness, and it always come back to disgusting modes of violence. Freddie wants me to incorporate more grisly deaths, but that’s not what I’m after. What scares you the most?"

Apart from being alone forever, not much.

There’s all the traditional motifs – ghosts, the undead, vampires, serial killers. You never hear about novels focusing on true-life scary things like government-sanctioned torture, civil rights violations, the conspiracy to distract the public with mindless entertainment.

Darien grinned. That’d make a great movie.

Vampires are cool now, werewolves are sexy. Torture is porn. But we’re not really scared by any of those things. As kids we were, but horror novels and movies are made for adolescents. They’re marketed to be palatably unpleasant without being truly frightening.

"Well, you’re a bit desensitized, don’t you think? Not everyone can chow down on Chop ‘Til You Drop. To quote Freddie, it was stooopid."

But did it scare you?

Darien shrugged. It made me sick to my stomach. Does that count?

You ever see the movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? It’s about this California town, Santa Mira. Perfect suburbia, where people mow their lawns, smoke pipes, and trust their local doctor. But there’s an alien presence that comes down and starts replicating people when they sleep. Every feature – voice, mannerisms – right down to the slightest scar is perfectly mimicked, and yet somehow the residents know that Uncle Ira isn’t really Uncle Ira. It’s this perfectly insidious invasion because you can’t distinguish who your friends or enemies are. Everyone becomes suspect. There’s this moment at the end of the movie. The town doctor, Miles Bennell, and his girlfriend Becky Driscoll are trying to escape the aliens. They’re exhausted because they can’t go to sleep, because that’s when the aliens replicate you. So, Miles goes off, and Becky falls asleep, and when Miles comes back, he kisses her awake, and he knows – he knows in that moment she’s gone and is replaced by this Uncanny Thing that looks like her, sounds like, tastes like her, but isn’t.

Tucker pushed his hair out of his eyes, restive. I keep thinking about that homeless guy. He didn’t seem human to me, eating that rat. He was like one these replicants – he looks human but isn’t.

And now he’s dead, said Darien. Some things aren’t supposed to happen. We should’ve done something sooner.

At least you tried to help. I wanted to get someplace safe.

And Freddie posted it on the internet. We all respond in different ways.

And what’s worse is I feel like the monster. I’m the one who walked away. I was so afraid he’d pull a knife on us. What if he went all Columbine? And this is absolutely crazy, but what if he tried to eat us?

Like the Donner Party or the Brazilian soccer team?

Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.

After a few seconds, Darien said, My aunt and uncle were wiped out in Katrina. They holed up on the second floor, the water rising all around them. My uncle’s diabetic and in a wheelchair most of the time. And my aunt, she weighs like half a ton. From Tucker’s expression, Darien realized he had to explain his non sequitur. After the levees broke, I went with my cousins to get them out. This was when you could only get around by boat. It was crazy, going down all these roads – well, not roads. Streams, rivers. Seeing all these drowned-out houses and only the tops of trees. If my cousins hadn’t known how to find their mama’s house, I’d never have found it. I spent my summers there, and I couldn’t recognize anything. The wreckage was like nothing I’d ever seen. Just this yellow house with a hole in the roof, and there’s my aunt waving from the window. It was rough getting them out. Hauling my uncle out in his wheelchair. Getting my aunt in the boat. Everything was ruined. The house was saturated with mold, it looked infected.

Did they lose everything?

Darien nodded. Well, seeing that homeless man reminded me of something my aunt told me. There were these crazy people in the house next door. After the levees broke, they went ape-shit and started drinking the flood water. My aunt shouted at them to stop. They got feverish and would howl all night. It’s like they never caught on the water was making them sick. My aunt’s a nurse, so she’s yelling at them to get their butts over to her place so she could take care of them. And then it just stopped. No noise, nothing. She didn’t see them again. When the rescue workers got there, they were marking houses where nobody was alive. My aunt told them there were people inside; she could hear someone crying. The rescue workers said there were only bodies in there now.

They died from drinking the water?

Darien drew a breath. My aunt swore she saw them fishing something out of the water one night. She couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like a dead dog. Darien stared at the tabletop. My aunt and uncle survived on canned beans and diet pop. At least they had food. These people didn’t have the sense God gave them.

Tucker’s stomach turned sideways. So, they may have eaten a dead dog.

And that man ate a rat. People do what they have to, to survive.

The story touched a deep place of dread. Tucker didn’t know how to respond.

Darien had a late afternoon class, so Tucker headed home. As he came to Mrs Sheffley’s house, he slowed. The van was still in the driveway, and beneath it, the blood had dried a dirty brown. Wanting to make sure she was all right, Tucker entered the open garage and knocked on the kitchen door, which was ajar. He peered in further before calling hello.

Something didn’t feel right. It belied all reason to open the door. Denying every instinct to leave, he stepped inside.

In the split second it took to cross the threshold, he argued nothing would happen. At worse, Mrs Sheffley would still be distraught. Maybe she would be calm enough to offer sincere gratitude for his help in the morning.

On the counter, a large garbage bag leaked blood into the sink.

Sitting at a round glass table, her back to the door, Mrs Sheffley hunched over. She was shuddering; was she crying all these hours later? Tucker hesitated. Maybe he should simply slip away, unseen.

She removed her hand from her face. A smear stained her hand brown, and she snorted, but not from crying. It sounded like she was forcing herself to choke down a bitter mouthful.

He shouldn’t be here: he backed into the garage and made it to the yard. But when he got there, he felt the yawning presence of the open garage behind him, and sick curiosity nudged him to check that the garbage bag containing the dead dog was where he’d left it. It didn’t make sense that Mrs Sheffley had brought it inside, but what else could it be, leaking into the sink?

I thought I heard someone. Mrs Sheffley stepped outside.

Panicked at being caught trespassing on her property, he kept his distance. Her unexpected calm unnerved him.

Tucker, I’m sorry I couldn’t thank you properly this morning. You were kind to clean up. I don’t know what I would’ve done on my own.

She reached to take his hand, and at the same moment they noticed the brown smear. I need to wash up, she said. You see, I couldn’t bear the thought of Buster being dumped in the garbage. So I’m going to bury him in the back yard, beneath the mulberry tree. That was his favorite spot.

Uh, that sounds nice.

I don’t suppose, she said, I don’t suppose you’d mind –

Mind, uh, Mrs Sheffley?

She indicated a shovel hanging in the garage. Digging the hole. I’m not strong enough. It doesn’t have to be a big hole. She indicated a spot beneath the tree where the roots were farthest apart.

Desperately wanting to decline, he felt compelled to help her again. Spiking the blade into the dry soil, he began loosening clumps. Uneasily he kept an eye on Mrs Sheffley, who watched with peculiar intensity, as though the grave would reveal unexpected treasure.

Let me get Buster.

She returned with the garbage bag, which he laid in the grave. Then standing beside her, he wondered if she would say any memorial or if this would be a silent mourning. When nothing else happened – the two of them standing here – he began pushing the soil back into the hole.

Thank you, Tucker, she said, touching his arm. He didn’t like the overly familiar pressure of her fingers, suggesting the incident had created a bond between them. You’ve been very kind.

Without another word, she returned to the house. Tucker paused in the work. Was he supposed to finish this on his own? Irritated, feeling like hired help, he pushed more dirt into the grave with both the shovel and the side of his shoe – anything to cover the bag.

Something jutted against