Hunger – Part 3

Here is Part 3 (and the final intallment) of Hunger.

Read Part 1 here.

Read Part 2 here.

 

Hunger

by Robert Wurth

Part 3

Hunger.

All consuming hunger.

The hunger is pain like jagged metal being twisted in my gut. It is a continuous shriek in my brain.

Darkness lifts and I can see.

I’m alive. I have no idea how, but I am.

I’m in a tunnel, deep inside my mind. The world is so far away. My face is pressing against the floor but I can’t feel it. The gun is in front of me, still where it fell when I dropped it. The black hole of the barrel stares at me impassively, waiting.

Perhaps it’s not too late.

I reach for the gun, but nothing happens. My arm doesn’t move. I try harder to will the limb to do something, twitch, anything, but it does no good. Am I paralyzed? Did something break when I fell?

The hunger!

It is like a living thing inside of me, trying to claw and rip its way out. The only thing I can feel is the hunger. I still can’t even feel the hard floor under my body.

The world begins to shake and everything moves around me. I have no idea what’s going on, but then I realize that I am the one moving. My head lifts from the floor as my arms prop them up. I don’t recall making this happen. I try again to reach for the gun, putting every effort I can imagine into it. My right arm buckles. I think I did this, but it causes me to lose my balance and my shoulder slams into the dresser.

Undeterred, my body once more pulls itself up from the floor.

Something vaguely familiar tickles the edges of my senses. By the time my body is standing, I’ve recognized the sensation. It is a smell. Tammy. Oh, my dear Tammy. The hunger flairs angrily at the smell, drowning out coherent thought. My body starts walking toward the bedroom doorway.

I fight to reclaim my thoughts and suddenly a glimmer of understanding floods into my mind.

Oh, God no! This can’t be happening! How am I still here? The me that can think and reason? How can I be trapped inside this thing that used to be my body?

I try to scream, to yell out some kind of warning, but my vocal cords won’t work. I look feebly back at the gun on the floor, but it’s too late and I’m out of the bedroom and rapidly approaching the head of the stairs. I can hear clattering in the kitchen. Tammy is still cooking dinner.

I’m half way down the stairs. The smell is stronger, intoxicating and burning in my nostrils, exciting the hunger into a frenzy. It isn’t the scent of the cooking food. That doesn’t even register in my mind. It’s the scent of flesh. It’s overwhelming, as though not just my nose, but every pore in my body is taking it in. Saliva fills my mouth, overflowing and running down my chin. So badly do I want to eat.

NO!

I won’t do this!

I have to stop!

Somehow, I have to go back up the stairs and get that pistol. I have to find the strength to use it. I focus everything that’s left of me on turning myself around and going back up the stairs.

My leg fumbles on the next step, missing it. My body stumbles and I hit the wall, almost falling. Mentally, I gasp from the effort and lose my concentration. My body recovers faster than I do and resumes its march down the steps. I need to try harder.

I’m at the bottom of the stairs. The kitchen is only just down the hall, behind a swinging door. I bear down and force the smell and the hunger out of my mind and think only of my legs.

My body stumbles and lurches. It’s working! I’m fighting for control. I’m still moving toward the kitchen, but the progress has become laborious as I fight for control of my legs. Every footstep is an epic battle of my will against unbearable instinct. My arms swing lifelessly and the world tilts as my head falls limp.

My forehead smashes into the swinging door, pushing it open and I stumble into the kitchen.

Tammy’s scent assaults me like a psychic hand grenade exploding in my consciousness. All of my efforts to fight dissolve instantly against the glorious smell of flesh. Tammy looks up and she instantly knows. She screams and reaches for her gun on the counter, but she’s too late. Snapped from my struggle, my body rushes forward. I’m on her in a flash and helpless to stop myself. I hit her and my momentum carries us onto the kitchen table. It collapses under the weight of the both of us and we slam into the ground.

Tammy struggles to get away, but my body is too strong for her, the hunger giving it willpower that doesn’t care if muscles and bone are stressed to the breaking point. I hold her to the ground. I can hear noises and shouts from the basement. The commotion must have alerted the others.

It doesn’t matter.

Only the hunger matters.

I have Tammy pinned completely and I can see the terror in the whites of her eyes. I love her so much. My head lowers toward her neck. She looks like she is screaming, but the only thing I can hear is a pulsating rushing in my ears that I imagine is the sound of the delicious blood coursing through her body.

No! No! No! No! No!

Tammy!

NO!

I want to scream, I want to stop, but I can’t.

The hunger is in total control, and something deep inside of me craves the flesh more than anything in the world. I am so close that Tammy screams directly in my ear, and this time I hear it, but it can’t drown out the call of the hunger. Then suddenly Tammy’s scream is cut off and replaced by a rasping gurgle.

The flesh is the sweetest thing I have ever tasted. Satisfaction so pure that I’ve never experienced anything like it. Complete ecstasy. My eyes roll back and close and the last thing I see is Tammy’s ruined throat.

I have become the hunger and I relish in the flesh. I crave it the way a flame craves oxygen. Warm blood and tissue slide down my throat and all I want is more.

There are noises behind me now. I hear shouts and screams, but I can no longer understand them. Eyes still closed, I bend down for more flesh. There is a metallic ka-chunk sound that seems vaguely familiar, then a shout that sounds something like “do it,” but I have no idea what that means.

I ignore the noises and sink my teeth once more into the glorious flesh.

There is a blinding flash and then the black hole finally, mercifully consumes me.

– The End –

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