Page 46 of Starve
I do get her burger, just as I promised. But naturally, the restaurant’s coffee machine is broken, or being cleaned, or maybe just not on the premises at all. For all I know, both it and the ice cream machine were abducted by aliens five minutes before I got here.
So all I end up with is a Cherry Coke, and while I know I asked for a small, the cup currently taking up my console is anything but. And I know if I drink all of it before I get home, there’s no way in hell I’ll be sleeping tonight.
Somehow, I miss the turn to my road, then I miss the next turn to make itbackto my road. My fingers flex on the steering wheel, and I don’t say anything over the low music playing in my car. I do finally turn onto the winding mountain road I’ve never taken on purpose.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how to get to Bluebone Ridge by myself.
The drive is long enough that I have plenty of time to wonder what the hell I’m doing, and if I’m going insane. This is the last place I should want to be, and certainly not in the middle of the night.
But I can’t stop myself. I can’t force myself to take any of the routes that would get me back to town and home. Though I do slow down to account for the narrow, winding mountain road. I’d really rather not end my night by plummeting off the side of a cliff in the Cascade Mountains after surviving a monster attack in the same place.
Though I suppose it would be poetic. And ironic.
When at last I end up at the parking lot in front of Bluebone Ridge, it feels like the drive has been both too long and not long enough. My fingers tighten on the steering wheel once I park in front of the partially open gates, and I look over the dark building, lit only by the moon in the clear, cloudless sky above.
It’s just as eerie as it was that night, but it looks…the same. I don’t know what I expected. Maybe signs of nature taking it back already, as impossible as that would be. Maybe signs hanging, or police tape fluttering in the breeze…
Somethingto signify what happened here barely two weeks ago.
Moro whines behind me, and I glance back at her with a shaky smile. “You can stay in here if you want,” I tell her, knowing she doesn’t understand but needing to say itnevertheless. Still, she doesn’t hesitate and surges out of the driver’s side door behind me the moment I’m out of her way.
Thank God,I sigh to myself. I really don’t want to be here alone.
Leaving my lights on is the smart move, and gives me some extra illumination as I slip between the gap in the heavy, bent gates. They’re definitely not made to be moved manually, and I don’t think the power is on to get them any further open so I could park near the door.
But that’s fine. I have no idea what I’m doing here anyway. Not in the least.
The cold is the first pressing thought that finds me, and I cross my arms over my chest to try to preserve some warmth. Not that it helps my bare legs. Shorts were a bad idea.
Coming here was a bad idea.
Every noise makes me jump. Every ruffle of leaves in the trees outside of the parking lot has me tripping over myself, and I’m sure something is going to come out of the forest with the intent to eat me.
I even imagine I hear my name—like I had in my dream—coming from the darkest parts of the asylum. Though I force myself to admit in my head that it’s my mind playing tricks on me. There’s no one, and nothing here. Not now, not anymore.
There’s no reason for them to be, I reason. If they were just here because they were hungry, there’s no reason for them to stick around now that all the food is gone. I shudder as I walk up the stairs, having to push the wordfoodout of my head when it’s really people I’m talking about.
Moro doesn’t stick by my side for long. She explores the courtyard, her tail waving like a flag when she pauses to investigate something of interest now and then. Stopping to watch her calms me down, since in my mind, there’s nothing here to be afraid of if she’s acting like everything is okay.
“Moro?” I call, standing at the top of the front stairs, where the large double doors were ripped off of their hinges. I have no idea how anyone explained this as an animal attack, unless an army of bears had shown up here to cause a coordinated scene.
I haven’t looked for any news on what happened in days, though. Not since I talked to Laura Simms. What’s the point? The truth isn’t going to come out, anyway. Anyone who knows isn’t saying anything, for fear of being called crazy and being locked up somewhere else with better security and less monsters.
The only other things that know what happened here aren’t human.
The lobby is free of bodies, but I can see where blood had pooled and sat on the old hardwood before anyone attempted to clean it. Which wasn’t done very well, judging by the dark stains. It was here I saw Hattie for the first time, and I curiously stride to the corner she’d been standing in that day, looking up to the ceiling high above us in the cathedral-like room like she did.
But there’s nothing anywhere. Nothing now, anyway, though I suppose I can’t rule out that back then there may have been something more interesting than dust. Moro’s nails click on the hardwood, and as I walk around the room, I watch as she sniffs at pooled bloodstains, one after the other, her ears going back to lie against her head as the fur of her neck slowly rises.
Judging by her attitude, this place makes her uneasy, too. At least where the bodies were before they got cleaned up.
“Me too, Moro,” I whisper. I walk over to the desk with one larger stain and streaks across the wood, and stare down at it, remembering this is where Esther had been. Where her sightless eyes stared up at me, wide with fear and confusion.
I hope she died fast, at least.
Before Cairo ate her.
Had he done it right here? Sat on the floor and ripped her apart, feeding on her flesh and marrow while waiting for something to attack me outside? Or did he drag her away, to a darker corner, like a leopard with its kill when it takes the bodies into trees to eat in peace?
