Page 45 of Starve
The bodies are screaming.
Sam’s torso with only one arm attached is moving like it can go somewhere, and her eyes are wide as she looks up at me with a whimper on her lips. “It ate me,” she gasps, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Why did you get out, but it ate me?!”
I don’t have an answer for her, but my focus gets pulled when I hear my name from the stairwell and turn to see the hallway is dark and spattered with blood. The floors are slick with it, and the walls are covered as the blood runs in rivulets from the ceiling, dripping in other places to create puddles on the floor below.
But my name sounds again in the loud, screaming hallway, though every sound except for my name is muffled and somehow in the background.
“Hello?” I call, my voice echoing in the hallway. “Can you hear me?”
But the only response I get is another sing-song variation of my name, drawing out the one syllable until the walls ring with it.
I know I shouldn’t walk toward the stairwell—I remember what happened that night—but I do. As I go, I can’t help butlook into all the rooms on either side where dead or dying patients scream and wail.
In some rooms, the creatures are there; devouring body parts while the people watch and scream and beg.
My stomach twists, but my feet keep moving. I can’t stop walking. Can’t stop heading to where the same voice calls my name in different ways.
“Tell me who you are!” I demand, finally reaching that oppressive darkness. “Tell me what’s happening!” This time, there’s no Moro to stop me, or surprise me from going inside the blackness.
I step inside the stairwell, and the meager light from the hall vanishes. I’m in complete blackness with only my breathing and the whisper of my name that beats against my ears for company.
“Hello?” I whisper, but my voice makes no sound. Suddenly, something grabs me, throwing me against the wall. The lights flick on, then off, like they did in the hallway, and when the stairwell lights up, I see the feral, bloodied face of Cairo in front of me, twisted into a look of primal hunger.
“Cairo!” I gasp, voice still a whisper.
“I’m so hungry, Fern,” he tells me, in that voice that sounds like everyone and no one at once. “You’ll help me, right? You’ll fix me?” He leans forward and licks a line up my throat, his mouth stopping near my ear. “I’m just so starving, and you taste so good.”
“Cairo, please?—”
I feel his teeth sink into my throat. Though there’s no real sensation of pain, I still feel every inch, each flex of his jaw. I swear I can sense every layer of skin that gives beneath his too-sharp teeth and every vein that shreds between his fangs.
“I’m starving, Fern,” he repeats with his mouth in my throat. He rips backward and I feel the horrible, gut-churningsensation of part of my throat going with him as he steps away, letting my body slide to the floor while I stare up at him, watching him lick the traces of blood from his lips.
“You were never safe from me, little bird.” His voice echoes, and he drops to his knees, fingers twining sweetly in my hair. “You should’ve known you can never trust a monster.” He dives in again, eyes black with hunger, as his teeth glisten with my blood in the flickering light just before he?—
My eyes snap open, and I sit up with a gasp. My hand goes immediately to my throat, fingers gripping hard around my skin. I’m shaking, and Moro sits up beside me to lick at my face, while concerned whines come from her throat.
“It was just a dream,” I whisper. As if I’m trying to convince her when in fact it’s my mind and body I’m talking to. But I can’t sit still. Immediately I’m up and getting dressed before I even know what I’m doing. I can’t sit here and do nothing with my mind racing and panic threatening to take over.
I know there’s nothing wrong. That none of that actually happened, and the night at Bluebone Ridge went remarkably differently. Cairo saved me, not killed me. The bodies weren’t screaming, and the walls hadn’t been dripping blood.
But here I am, getting dressed in a hoodie and a pair of loose shorts that aren’t appropriate for the chilly night. I find my sneakers and yank them on, then shove my phone into my pocket. I have no business going anywhere. Especially with my heart racing and my mind not quite where it needs to be. But I hesitate, glancing around the house.
“Cairo…?” I call, half-hoping he’ll appear.
But he doesn’t. It’s just the darkness, me, and Moro behind me, looking eager for the inevitable car ride she knows is about to happen. Naturally. The one time I really want him to be here so I can bother him orbebothered by him, he’s nowhere in sight.
“Well, we live in a tiny town, Moro,” I tell her, pushing open the front door. “So there’s nothing open at one in the morning, except maybe fast food? I guess we could get you a burger.” She wags her tail at me, but that’s probably just at the idea of getting to go out and explore.
“Yeah, okay. We’ll get you a burger.” She bounds into my car the moment I open the door, excitement all over her doggy features. For a moment, I just sit in the car in silence. My fingers flex around the steering wheel and I sigh, biting my lip.
I should go back to bed.
But my heart is still beating too fast from the nightmare. My hands still shake, and it feels like I’m being zapped by electricity, with a charge running through my veins that keeps me restless and anxious.
If I go back to bed now, I’ll just lie there and panic until it gets worse and I’m a mess who can’t function in the morning. Not that I’m doing great as it is. But if I can just give myself something to focus on, give myself atask, I should be able to work through my anxiety from the nightmare that isn’t fading.
“Burger,” I repeat, watching my grey and white wolf dog pant happily in the backseat. The collar around her neck interrupts her fluffy ruff, and the tag I got shines in the reflected headlights. “You, clearly, will starve without a burger.”
