Page 30 of Starve
“Alicia was next. I just stood there, watching. Didn’t know what to do,” she admits, shrugging her frail shoulders. “I don’t remember much about it, just what I told you and what they printed in that damn article.” She sits back then, mouth pressed flat. “Except for one other thing that I’ve never told anyone.” Her gaze finds mine and holds it. “There was a woman out there, about your age. She wasn’t afraid of them. I don’t know where she came from, or who she was. I don’t know if she was human, or maybe I made her up. But given what you said when you came to my door…” her voice trails off, eyes going unfocused.
“What did she say?” I prompt. “Or do, or—Did she help you?”
“She told me they were starving.” The words send a shiver down my spine, and I sit upright in my chair. “She said I couldn’t blame them, could I?” Her mouth twists in a sneer.“They’restarving. They can’t help themselves. You shouldn’t be out here, where they suffer.”
I don’t know what most of that means.
“The only things Hattie ever said to me were ‘they’re starving,’ ‘they’re coming,’ and ‘they’re here,’” I admit, feeling like I’ve disappointed her. “She didn’t know anything else. Or if she did, she didn’t tell me.” When Laura doesn’t answer, just stares, I give her a few moments to see if that will change.
It doesn’t.
Eventually, I get to my feet, feeling like I should leave. She seems almost catatonic now, and certainly has no interest in continuing this conversation with me. “I’m sorry I brought it up,” I tell her quietly, drinking the last of my tea. “And I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. I just needed to know that I wasn’t alone. I just…” But I trail off, because I don’t know what else I want. Or what else I evencouldwant.
With a nudge, Moro gets to her feet, but before I can go anywhere, Laura reaches out to grab my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “I’ve seen them since, you know,” she tells me, not looking up from her glass. “I see them in the woods around town sometimes. It always makes me wonder when someone goes missing if it really was just an accident. Then I wonder how they survive when they aren’t attacking and killing humans. Because they aren’t human.” She finally looks up at me, her eyes sharp.
“But I think they were once. I saw them that night talking, using the voices of my friends when they were looking for me. They’re not normal. Notnatural.But I think before they became whatever they are, they were human.”
“Why?” I blurt out, confused.
“Because only humans know how to think like that. An animal wouldn’t consider using another’s voice to trick its prey, would it?” Her grin is humorless and dark, but it sends a shiverdown my spine. I excuse myself quickly, unable to stay here, and I head to my car so quickly I barely notice the sound of the chimes on the door when I yank it open and close it behind me.
Only when I’m in my car, with my back against my seat, do I let out a breath and sigh. Of everything I’ve considered, this possibility bothers me the most. That these things, thesemonsters,could’ve ever been human.
What kind of humaneatsits own kind?
Chapter 13
I can feelMoro’s breath on my face and smell her surprisingly inoffensive breath long before she gives a littlewoofto wake me.
“We cannot be doing this,” I mutter, eyes still closed even with her paw planted on my shoulder. “Seriously, Moro, we’ve done so well before now. Please don’t break our streak and start being a menace during the night.”
She woofs again, making sure I know without a doubt that Iwillbe getting my ass out of this bed for her. It’s traumatizing, but I shove myself upward, gently shooing her away from me as I break free from my comfortable, enviable slumber. “I still love you, Moro. But maybe a little less if this becomes a thing.” God, this really can’t become a thing.
I stumble to my feet in my t-shirt and shorts; my need to sleep while basically freezing always wins out no matter what the temperature outdoors is. Tonight I also slide on my sneakers, and groan when I see that it’s a little after two am. This isprimesleeping time, and I definitely don’t stay asleep long enough on my own to deserve Moro disrupting what little of it I get.
The back glass door is a little heavy, especially when I’m still half asleep, but I yank it open, forcing it to slide open on its track. I flip on the deck light to squint out into my fencelessbackyard that opens up into the forest behind the few houses on my road. “Just hurry up, okay?” I sigh. “I want?—”
Unlike every other time I’ve let her out, Moro takes off, running lightly down the little deck’s stairs and out into the yard. She circles a few times, then moves to sniff one of the nearest trees, her tail wagging. A quick yip of excitement comes from her mouth, and with that she’s gone, disappearing outside of the range of my light.
“Moro?” I ask, and my stomach suddenly clenches nervously. “Moro!” Usually when I call her, she’s quick to come. And I’ve never seen her actually leave the yard any of the times I’ve let her out before off of a leash.
But tonight she doesn’t come back. I don’t hear her in the trees, nor the sound of her paws brushing across the debris in my yard. “MORO!” Her name comes out as a scream from my lips, and before I know it, I’m off of the deck and jogging across my yard.
What if she gets lost? I can’t help that thought, but the one that whispers through my mind next is even worse.
What if one of those monsters found her?
My steps pick up until I’m all out running, my feet carrying me faster into the chilly night air and away from the safety of my lit backyard. It’s not until I’m ten steps into the woods, however, that I realize just how bad of an idea this is, and how I really need to go back to the house. There’s a very real chance of me getting lost once the trees start getting thicker and I can’t see even a speck of light from my deck.
A rush of movement catches my eye, and I whip my head around with a gasp, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu from that night at Bluebone Ridge. “Oh, fuck,” I whisper, stumbling back. “Oh, I fucked up real bad. Shit.” Every curse word I know comes bubbling to my lips, and I flex my hands against the bark of a tree behind me.
Yeah, I really should’ve stayed in the house.
Suddenly Moro appears, barking, her tail wagging stiffly and her ears pricked forward. She runs past me, evading me easily as I grab for her collar, and I nearly hit the ground from overbalancing in the effort. “Damn it, Moro!” I whisper, staggering. “Comeon!” She’s ignoring me, darting and bounding at something I can’t see.
Finally she stops moving, and I see her standing with her tail wagging, about twenty feet away by the base of a large tree, like she’s trapped something against it. Surely if it is one of those monsters, it would be fighting her. Even if it’s wounded already. But she’s not exactly attacking either, I note, slowing my steps as I get closer to her.
“Moro?” I breathe, and my dog looks up at me briefly, her tail wagging again like she’s found something worth showing off. I still can’t help my apprehension though, even as I tell myself it’s probably a stray cat or raccoon or some other poor, unsuspecting animal she’s scaring to death. That’s what gets me the rest of the way to her, and it’s not until I’m rounding the last tree before reaching Moro that I realize cats and raccoons and opossums don’t wear jeans and dirty sneakers that have seen better days.
