Ravenous

“The son of a bitch bit me! I guess he’s never heard of Battery L.E.O. Oh, he’ll find out!”

Rachel paced back and forth across her living room floor, her Bluetooth making it appear to the casual observer as though she was talking to herself. “Yeah. No, I’m fine. They sent me home. I’m supposed to go back to the doctor in a few days for a check-up. Alright. Talk to you later. Love you, too. Bye.”

She winced as she pulled up the navy blue sleeve of her police uniform and inspected the fresh wound on her forearm. The gauze was already beginning to turn a light shade of brown.

Seven stitches. Bastard.

Law enforcement had been looking for Dallas Long for the past four days. His wife and child had been murdered, their bodies mutilated to the point that both had had to be identified by dental records. It was one of the most gruesome crimes that the city of Lakeview had seen in years and Dallas was their lead suspect.

When Rachel and her partner, Kendrick, were called out to 42nd street and Vine on a suspicious male wandering the neighborhood at 4 am, possibly intoxicated, they flipped on their lights and sped to the location. The caller’s description had matched that of Mr. Long and, when they arrived, there was no mistaking it. This was the man they were looking for.

Dallas was disheveled, filthy, and staggering down the street. He seemed completely out of touch with reality.

“Bath salts,” Rachel said, to Kendrick. “I bet you anything. I’ve been reading a lot about these bath salts in the news. Turning people into goddamned zombies.”

Kendrick smirked and shook his head. “This one might be a fighter.”

To their surprise, Dallas turned out to be very subdued. Rachel supposed that was due to whatever chemical concoction he had coursing through his veins, but he seemed to be so incoherent that he couldn’t even form a sentence. Between his feral grunts and slurps, she could only make out one word, “Hungry.” Drool dripped on to the front of his torn, stained IZOD polo shirt, causing a dark circle of wetness to emerge.

It wasn’t until she had turned him around to cuff him that a sharp pain ripped through her left forearm. She screamed in agony as his teeth sunk deep into her flesh.

“Get him off of me,” she shrieked.

Kendrick was way ahead of her. He had had his baton out, striking Dallas about the head and neck before she finished her sentence.

What a way to end a night, she thought to herself.

The hospital visit, alone, had taken almost 2 hours and then there was the paperwork to fill out. By the time she set foot in her apartment, it was already creeping up on 8:00 in the morning.  She was exhausted and starving, having skipped a meal to deal with all of the red tape bullshit that went along with being an assaulted officer.

Thank God for leftover pizza in the fridge.

She devoured more than a few slices of microwaved Hawaiian pizza and fell asleep in her recliner, watching old episodes of “The Beverly Hillbillies,” the dirty paper plate sitting on her chest.

The lively music of “The Price is Right” was what had woken her an hour later. She squinted her eyes, the sun blaring through her front room windows, and gave Bob Barker the finger before unceremoniously clicking the TV off.

“God,” she groaned aloud, though no one was around to hear it.

She shuffled down the hall, toward the shower, inspecting the wound on her arm as she walked. Once she was disrobed, in the bathroom, she carefully began to peel back the bandage. The smell was what hit her first.

The only thing that came close, in her memory, to that smell was the time that she and her husband, Jack, had come home from vacation to find that their deep freeze had quit working about five days before. She had vomited, then.

She retched but, thankfully, managed to keep down her dinner.

The skin around the entire wound was a bluish yellow tint with overlapping areas of a sickly, olive green. Brown crust clung to the stitches as though they had only recently stopped seeping fluid.

I need to call the doctor.

As she cleansed the wound under the warm, clear shower water, she suddenly felt herself growing hungry, yet again, repulsed as she had been only moments ago. Her stomach persisted, growling as though she hadn’t eaten anything in days.

After drying off and throwing on her favorite white flannel robe, she rushed to the kitchen to satisfy her persistent hunger pangs.

Salty? No. Sweet? Not exactly. Savory? Yes! Savory. She needed something with a lot of heft to it, like a big piece of meat. She searched her refrigerator shelves. There was a pound of hamburger that she had bought a few days ago for a casserole she was planning to make later in the week.

Cooking it will take too long, she thought to herself.

She tore open the package with her bare hands and sniffed. The raw, stinking meat made her mouth water. Revolted at herself, she began shoveling handfuls of it into her mouth. It was cold, sticky, grainy, and chewy. Almost like eating a vat of bloody, frigid worms.

Mmm. Worms! Wait- what?! What’s wrong with me?

She disgusted herself, but she couldn’t stop. This hunger had to be fed. Her body was out of her mind’s control. Sobs escaped her full mouth as tears rolled down her bulging cheeks.

And then she heard it.

It was like a dinner bell.

The lock to the front of her apartment clicked open. Jack was home from work, on his lunch break. God help him, he smelled positively delicious.



Word Count: 977