Page 29 of Starve
“Thank you.” It feels appropriate to say the words as I step inside and the door closes behind me with a sound of musical chimes that makes me turn. A small instrument hangs on the door, wooden balls swinging over metal wires like a harp or a guitar. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I watch the circular contraption as the balls slow and the musical sound becomes quieter, before I even think to look at Laura herself.
“My father made them,” she explains after seeing where I’m looking. “He was into woodworking, and he made those for all of us kids and his wife.” She reaches up to trace her fingers along the metal wires, producing a very soft sound. It gives me a chance to really look at her, and my heart twists at what I see.
Life has not been kind to Laura Simms. She looks eighty, instead of sixty, with heavy lines on her face and dark circles under ghostly grey eyes that seem pale with age. Her hair is brittle and straw-like, thin enough that I can see her scalp through the white strands. She’s hunched over a little, standing maybe five foot even with the decline, making me feel way taller than I ever have the right to.
I expected an intimidating, cold woman hardened by her experiences.
But I hadn’t expected such a frail, fragile-looking woman.
When she sees me looking at her, the smile on her face turns cool and unsurprised. “Not what you were expecting?” she asks, though I can tell she’s not looking for an answer. Her hand goesout to Moro, who sniffs her and then licks her thin, age-spotted palm.
“I don’t know what I was expecting,” I admit, shrugging my shoulders heavily. “This is Moro, by the way. She belonged to a guard up at Bluebone Ridge until a week ago.”
Laura pins me with her gaze, curiosity rather than suspicion in her eyes. “Did you steal her?”
“She saved me and somehow found her way to my house. Her old owner is dead, though he didn’t treat her well.” I say it easily, without trying to sound defensive or like I’m expecting an interrogation about it. Honestly, I don’t think Laura cares much about the circumstances of how I got her.
But she looks at Moro in a new light and runs a hand over her head again. “So you were the most recent alarm system, eh girl?” she asks, surprising me with the words. “Only one dog? There were two back when I was there. I bet they told you some bullshit about her scaring off the local wildlife, right?”
“Was that not true?”
“You tell me. Did you ever see anything get close enough for her to scare off? Other than the monsters that attacked on Sunday?”
I shift uncomfortably, somehow surprised at how much she seems toknow.“No,” I admit quietly. “All I ever saw wasthem.Those things, or whatever they are. But you saw them too, right? You?—”
She walks away, leaving me a little nonplussed and standing in the foyer of the small house. But when Laura turns to look at me, I realize I’m supposed to follow her. So I do, letting her lead me to a small kitchen with room only for appliances, a few cabinets, and a two-person table squeezed into the breakfast nook. Laura gestures for me to take a seat, and I do, on the side of the table with less space. Moro doesn’t need any coaxing, and stretches out on the floor beside me.
At least she’s easy to please and doesn’t seem to require much other than a few casual adventures, food, and a steady supply of belly rubs while we watch reality TV at home.
Laura walks over and sets down two glasses, both of them with tea and ice cubes that rattle delicately against the real crystal. Carefully, she levers herself into the seat across from me, taking her time and then looking up to study me the same way I’d studied her.
“I heard you were the only confirmed survivor,” she says grimly, her gaze never leaving mine. “How’d you do it?”
“How did I…” I trail off at the question. Normally I’d lie or brush it off. But she knows what I saw, and I figure I can’t gain anything from lying to her if I want her to tell me what happened all those years ago. “Moro saved me when I followed the sound of my name to the stairwell. It was strange. It sounded so familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” she assures me quietly.
“She saved me, and we got out. I don’t know what I was thinking, except that I needed to get off the mountain. But another one attacked me in the parking lot. I heard my name again, I think? This is where it gets a little foggy, actually.” Absently, I press my fingers to my palm that’s now healed. Still, there’s a shiny new scar just below my thumb where I cut into my hand with scissors, and it still twinges as I run my fingers over it with more force than I should.
“It bit me, sort of. Moro was trying to get it off of me. But I passed out. I guess she must have gotten it off of me, or killed it.” I nudge Moro with my foot, who thumps her tail on the floor. “Unless something else distracted it, maybe?” But I shake my head. “I really don’t know anything else. Two days later, I woke up in the hospital. And lied to the cops,” I add. “I didn’t want to end up right back in another asylum.”
“Good for you,” Laura chuckles. “That’s what I would’ve done too. What Ishould’vedone all those years ago.” She goes quiet, her eyes distant. “Why did you say that outside? ‘They’re starving’?”
The question catches me off guard, though I guess it shouldn't. It's our shared trauma, after all. The one detail we can both relate to, more than anything. “There was a girl in there with me. Her name is Hattie—was Hattie,” I correct unhappily. “Somehow she knew about them, I think? She said that to me multiple times before they got there. And then that night, too. Really, I thought she was just rambling, and I have no idea how she knew.” I toss my hands up in surrender, and then busy myself with picking up the glass of tea. The ice is already melting, and I swirl the crystal gently in one hand before taking a sip.
“This is amazing,” I say, surprised at how it tastes. “Did you make this? Like, yourself?”
“It’s sun tea.” There’s pride in Laura’s voice that I can’t miss, and she gives me a genuinely grateful smile. “I made it yesterday.”
“It’s amazing,” I reiterate, though I don’t even know what sun tea is. “Thank you.” It’s not every day that I get anything homemade.”
“None of us knew,” Laura tells me after a few moments of tracing her fingers over the crystal glass. “Even back then we heard the same stories as you, I’m sure. I made a couple of…friends.” Her voice turns bitter on the word. “They talked me into trying to get out. It was summer, so they said the weather was mild enough that we’d be fine. They would’ve been there for a very long time otherwise. I would’ve been out in a few weeks. But still…” She sighs. “I was naïve. Escaping was the easy part. There were staff shortages back then, and we had their shifts memorized.”
The idea of it being understaffed surprises me, given how many orderlies prowled the halls and courtyards at all hours of the day and especially night. But I don’t interrupt her. I worry that if I interrupt her, she won’t finish. Not that I’d blame her, since this isn’t my favorite topic either.
“We escaped and made it to the woods, dressed in some stolen clothes we found. We thought that without the uniforms, no one would recognize us. And since none of us were there for criminal reasons, it wouldn’t be a big deal so long as we made it off the mountain. Can you believe the ignorance in us thinking that?” Her laugh is not humorous. It’s an ugly, derisive sound that has me biting my lower lip.
“Within an hour we were lost,” she goes on. “Hopelessly so. I remember when we started seeing these things in the woods. Jen got scared first. She took off running at the sight of them, and it was so fast. Like she triggered their hunting instincts.” In her eyes, I can see the same horror I felt. I don’t need the details, and she doesn’t seem interested in giving them.
