Hunger

                                                                       

It was summoned to pass judgment--either to bless or destroy. The mechanism, woven from a web of primordial chemicals and an Egyptian spell that was inscribed on the tomb wall of a lesser ruler--a subjugant in the Valley of the Kings. Enslavement is the progeny of progress. 

“Don’t go out there, Ev!” Jack was frantic. 

Condensation formed on the inside of the oak door and was slippery to the touch.

“What are we supposed to do? Sit here?”

Jack turned and looked at the window. The plastic shade was pulled and its white outline created a low-lit portal away from the door opposite.

“Maybe we could--” He paused and turned back to her.

“Maybe we could go through the window.”

Ev felt goosebumps rise on her arms and legs as the atmosphere of the room cooled. The air seemed to ripple at the base of the door like a highway mirage--but she was in her bedroom, next to Jack, her fiance, who she thought was the man of her dreams.

Her dad always said she had grit but when she was growing up it didn’t seem like a compliment. It seemed like something boys should have. Girls should have something else. What that was she didn’t discover until she met Jack. 

They met at O’Shay’s where she’d waitressed in college. She was attracted to his charm and big smile when he was embarrassed. He held her in his arms after they made love and she felt safe in a way that she always longed for. But Jack had never been tested, never been asked to dig deep and find something he didn’t even know was there.

“Jack, what is that under the door?” As she asked the question the air thickened, rolled and twisted like smoke but became thicker--it seemed to gather mass.

“Jack!” 

She turned to look at him as he released the shade and it retracted with a shriek. He looked at her then and she saw the thing just on the other side of the glass--its eyes concentrated on the back of Jack’s head, swiveled up and caught Ev’s.

“Jack! Look out!”

Just then a thin, red, ropey cable pierced the window and Jack’s belly. It was lined with veins and writhed like a snapped powerline, and just as quickly, pulled back through the entry hole and sucked out the other side. Jack dropped to the floor, blackness at the window.

The cold materializing under the door continued to roll into the room and had now wrapped itself around Ev’s ankles, freezing her skin. She stepped out of it and rushed the remaining distance to Jack, whose eyes were wide and vacant while the contents of his body leaked from the hole that must have severed his spine.

“I love you, Baby,” she whispered in a rush before pulling the shade back down and breaking the rest of the glass out of the window and crawled out onto the porch roof. It’s work done, the miasma at the door thinned and dissolved into the air.

An hour earlier Ev had stood in the doorway of the bedroom, thick wool socks bunched around her ankles. Jack admired the curve of her hips and the wildness of her pubic hair, her breasts were small and erect, although her arms were crossed over them at that moment.

“Your mother’s friends are not going to be the priority here, Jack.”

“Ev, you know how she is. What’s the big deal? We won’t even know they’re there.”

“I’ll know. She’ll know. You don’t see it, but she manipulates you.”

Jack knew she was right. His own father shared a bungalow in Kingman with Janice, a widower that dotted on him. 

Em looked at Jack, lying on the bed, partially covered with the sheet. His modesty felt prudish sometimes. He smiled at her then. She let it go.

“Come over here, Babe.”

He lay on his back and she settled on top of him and pushed her palms into his chest and began to rock back and forth. Economy and precision brought her to orgasm just as Jack came quietly with a muffled release of breath like a rabbit in the brush.

Brunch that morning was a belated introduction to her parents. It went well even though they were spent from their trip to Egypt. “Cruise the Nile! Luxor to Aswan! See where civilization began!” They ate pigeon and baba ganoush. Her mother always lost herself in the cuisine when they returned from a trip. Her father, unusually silent, seemed distant. Jack was a good sport though and she thought they liked him.  

From atop the porch roof she looked down on the silent front yard, a breeze shifted the dry leaves in the trees and she could smell the animal rank coming from Jack’s body.  A slice of moon was a bright gash in the dark sky. She was hungry. The grinding in her gut caused her back to arch. Unaccountably, Ev longed for the sinewy tearing of muscle with her teeth. The idea of the fibrous sound thrilled her. 

She thought of Jack again and that first smile at O’Shays and how her interest, coaxed into existence like a gentle breeze on a flame, turned to desire. The memory was enough.  Forgive me Father, she thought without the slightest idea from where it came.