Hunger

    Hungry…

    So very hungry…

    It’s all I can think about.  All I’m capable of thinking about.  Food.  I must get food.  They’re keeping me hungry.  They’re keeping me hungry on purpose.  Because they want me to eat.  They want me to eat him.  Eat him alive.

    The horrified man sits across from me in our stainless steel box.  His gaping eyes don’t dare move away.  He must stare back at me.  Stare into the face of death. 

    The lights are bright.  So hot.  He’s sweating bullets.  I can smell him all the way over here.  A normal man would be repulsed by the stench, but I wasn’t.  I wasn’t even human.  Not anymore.  Not after what they did to me.  Those monsters!  The smell makes my stomach rumble.

    He’s scared.  Mortified.  He loudly breathes through his nose.  Trying desperately to keep himself from crying.  All it does is make me hungrier.  His heartbeat thumps in my ears, beating my eardrums.  Where there's a heartbeat, there is blood.  Where there's blood, there is meat.  Fresh meat.

    Hungry…

    So very hungry…

    My stomach is eating itself.  But I can’t.  I can’t let myself eat.  That’s what they want me to do.  They want me to feed.  I know.  I know if I let myself eat, I will never stop.  I will never want to stop.  I would become the creature they wanted.  A predator.

    I stand up slowly, my eyes focused on his.  Every joint in my body aches.  My skin itches all over as the remainder of my humanity flakes away.  I’m shedding skin like some sort of reptile.  Beginning to look like one too.  Thick, bumpy, grey skin all over.  Gross.  So ugly.  The man I was is dead.  Now all that remains is the monster.

    He staggers to his feet.  His heart beats faster.  He’s crying.  Pleading.  He doesn’t want to die.  I don’t want to kill him.  But, I’m so hungry.  I can already feel myself getting weaker.  I need to eat something.  I need to eat…I need to eat him.  I move closer.  My talon-like feet scrape across the metal floor.

    He tries to run, but I’m faster now.  One quick jerk and I have him in my hands.  He’s only inches from me now, trying desperately to break free.  I’m stronger than I was before.  When I was human.  I barely feel his weight on my limbs.  I open my mouth, exposing the jagged shark teeth that have replaced my old ones.  His fingers claw at my arms, but they can’t even break skin.  Weak.  Pathetic.  Human.

    I catch my reflection in the two-way mirror they use to observe me.  My hair is falling out.  My eyes are hollow.  I look like something out of a horror movie.  What have they done to me?

    “P-please…please don’t kill me,” he whimpers.  His breath smells like garlic.  They fed him before they dropped him in here.  It smells good.  Good enough to eat.

    NO!

    I throw him back to the floor and turn away.  I can hear  him dragging himself over to the window.  He’s banging on the window, screaming.  Pleading for them to let him out.  Begging them not to let him die.  No one listens to him.  No one cares.  I force myself to walk back to my corner.

    Hungry…

    So very, very hungry…

    Even now, I know.  He’s a dead man.

    Night has arrived, but you’d never know it.  Do they ever turn off these damn lights?!  I’m so tired, but I can’t sleep.  My stomach feels so empty, like I’ve not eaten in weeks.  But, it’s only been a few hours.  They dropped in a few pounds of raw beef an hour before they dropped him in.  I ate it all within minutes. 

    Now he just lies there too afraid to fall asleep.  I don’t blame him.  Still…my stomach…needs food.  You’re looking tastier and tastier, little man.  Little human.

    I close my eyes.  I try to focus.  Focus on things beyond eating.  Things I would have thought about before I came to be in this situation.  Things like…things like…nothing comes.  I can’t stay focused.  Everything comes in fragments.  Disjointed images of people.  Faces I should recognize.  But it all comes back to food. 

    I open my eyes and I see him.

    Food!

    I can’t…can’t hold myself back much longer.  They’re winning.  Whatever they’ve done to me, they’re getting what they want.  A weapon.  A monster.  Both.  Who cares?  I just wish they’d feed me. 

    Hungry…

    So very, very hungry…

    “Howard,” a voice echoes over the loud speaker.  “You need to eat.”

    Howard?  Is that…is that my name?  I can’t remember.  It seems like so long ago.  A lifetime ago.  Before I became this…this thing.  The man begins to plead again.  I’m tempted to kill him just to shut him up.

    “Listen, Howard,” the voice continues, “you don’t have a lot of time left.  The mutations in your body have increased your metabolism.  If you don’t eat within the next few hours, you’re going to die of starvation.”

    Shut up!  Shut up!  Shut up!  Stop talking about food!  You son of a bitch! STOP IT!  I can’t eat him.  I can’t.  I won’t be your monster.  I’ll die first.  You just watch!  You want him dead.  You do it yourself, you coward!

    “You need food, Howard.”

    “THEN FEED ME!” I shout.  It was difficult.  So hard to form the words, like I’ve never spoken before.  My voice has changed.  It’s deeper.  More like a roar.  Like an animal.  That’s what they want.  A vicious animal.  A killing machine.

    “We already have, Howard,” the voice replied coldly.  “He’s right in front of you.”

    Hungry…

    So hungry…

    I curl up in my corner and try to shut the voice out.  I won’t feed.  I won’t.  I don’t care what you say.  Men can control their hunger.  That’s what I am.  A man.  Not some beast that knows only instinct.  I don’t care what you’ve made me on the outside.  I can still reason.  I can still think.

    Food.

    I think about food.

    “Fine,” says the voice.  “If he’s not appetizing enough…”

    A slot opens in the ceiling and a mounted gun lowers into the room.  The man screams and tries to run.  There is nowhere to go.  One shot is all it takes.  He isn’t killed.  One bullet to the leg.  He’ll survive.

    Blood.

    I smell blood.

    It takes over everything.  That one pungent smell.  That wonderful smell.  The smell of meat.  Wounded meat.  Easy meat.

    My limbs move on automatic, as if my stomach has taken over when my mind has refused.  He cries in pain.  Then again when he sees me coming.  He tries to crawl away, but he knows this is it.  He’s a dead man.

    I grab his leg and pull him toward me. I’m getting weaker.  He seems heavier than before.  But not much.  My clawed hand wraps around his throat as I lift him off the floor.  He gasps for air.  Soon he’ll be dead.  Soon he’ll be ready to eat.

    Hungry…

    Not for much longer.

    My predator’s eyes catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye.  I can see through the mirror now.  A silhouette.  Someone’s watching me feed.  Some scavenger wants my food.

    No!

    They can’t have it!

    I roar at the top of my lungs.  Had I been human, I would have cried in pain from the volume alone.  Like the man dying in my hand.  The room acted like an amplifier.  The window cracked.  My mind returned.  I throw the man through the broken glass.  He misses the scientist on the other side.  I don’t.

    I crash down on top of him.  Glass flies everywhere.  I feel his ribs break.  His cheap cologne masks the smell, but I know it’s there.  Just below his fragile, pink skin.  Blood.  Meat.  Food.

    He’s crying now.  I don’t blame him.  He’s about to get what he wants.  A monster with a full stomach.

    OW!

    A bullet bounces off my arm.  Damn.  Armored men coming from both sides.  No time to eat.  Time to flee.  Flee to survive.  Feed later.  RUN!

    Damn it.

    Hungry…

    So very hungry…

    I leap off the scientist and run past more two-way mirrors.  I plow through the men.  Their weapons clatter across the floor.  I don't bother to look back.  Gotta keep running.  The hallway is long.  A quarter mile or so.  There are more.  More like me behind the glass.  Creatures.  Animals.  Monsters.  Like me.  But not like me.  My box was clean.  These others are splattered with blood.  They had lost who they were in the hunger.  Like I almost did. 

    Now I can see what they wanted me to be.  What I almost became.  But I’m back now.  I know who I am.  Howard.  Lt. Howard Wheeling.  My mind starts working again.  That man in the cell with me.  His name was…it was Jimmy.  He signed on, like me, for this. 

    What the hell was this?  It was…it was supposed to be different.  I wasn’t supposed to become this thing.  It was supposed to help people.  Help fight disease.

    They lied.

    They lied to me.  To all of us.

    Jimmy…he didn’t react to the shot like I did.  He was immune.  Wouldn’t change into what they wanted.  He’d seen too much.  So they gave him to me.

    I still feel it.  The hunger.  But now it works for me.  It keeps me human.  An animal reacts to hunger.  A man controls it.

    I had to stop them.  Stop them from letting the monsters out.  From letting me out.  But…but something’s wrong.  Vision’s getting fuzzy. 

    They’re not chasing me.  Why aren’t they…

    I suddenly fall over.  My limbs are numb.  My head is swimming.  So weak.  I close my eyes.  Can’t give in.  Can’t let them win.

    Hungry…

    So very hungry…

    “I told you to eat, Howard,” the voice said.  “Now you’ve burned up all your energy.”

    “What do we do with him?” a scientist asks.  “None of them has ever refused to eat before.”

    “I know,” responds the voice.  “Intriguing.  Let him die.  Complete an autopsy.  Then feed him to the others.”

    “Yes, sir.”

    I try to move, but I can’t.  It’s gone.  My energy is all gone.  At least I’ve won.  I never gave in.  I never ate.  They didn’t get what they want.  Not out of me.

    I hear a gunshot.  Then another.  I open my eyes.  Two men fall dead.  I’m too weak to even think of meat.  I hear voices.  Shouting.  I can’t make anything out.

Someone lifts me off of the ground.  It’s Jimmy.  He’s all cut up from the glass.  His leg is still bleeding.  He carries me with one arm.  Shoots with the other.  He heads for the door.  He’s trying to save me.  Why?  Why would he?  I’m dangerous. 

    He says something to me, but I can’t understand him.  I feel something stab me in the belly, where my skin is still soft.  Then, everything goes dark.

    Something unexpected happens.  I wake up.  I’m  in the backseat of a car.  I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping.  Don’t know how I got there.  I should be dead.  And I’m hungry.  I smell food.  No.  Not Jimmy in the driver’s seat.  Burgers.  A whole bag full of burgers.

    “Sorry I had to tranquilize you back there,” Jimmy says.  “It was the only way to slow your metabolism down long enough to get you outta there before those bastards let you die.  You’d better dig into those burgers before you crap out on me.  You’re no use to me dead.  I don’t think I can get back into that place without you.  Somebody’s gotta teach those sons a bitches a lesson.”

    Yes.  The monsters must die.  But, first, food.  I grab the bag.  The predator in me wants fresh meat.  The man in me knows that can never happen.

    Hungry…

    So very hungry…