The New Hunger

  He looks concerned. “What? What’s a—”

  She laughs and shoves him in the face. “Never mind. Come on.”

  She walks into the dining area and glances around, searching for the kitchen. Addis pauses at the edge of the Needle’s outer rim, which rotates slowly.

  “Whoa…” he says again. “The whole place moves?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard about that. Cool, huh?”

  “Are you sure it doesn’t go into space?”

  “Let’s go look around. Maybe we’ll find the command deck.”

  Compared to most of the city below, the restaurant is in very good shape. One table is missing its cloth and silverware and there is a wad of bloody bandages on one of the benches, but the place is otherwise unspoiled. No broken windows, no graffiti, no corpses. But they aren’t here for the atmosphere.

  They stand in front of the door of the walk-in freezer, paralyzed with suspense like gameshow contestants watching the wheel. Bankrupt or jackpot? Starve or keep going?

  Nora pulls the door open. The freezer is full of food. Tubs of sliced vegetables, stacks of baguettes, bins stuffed with chicken breasts and steaks, a dozen sausage ropes hanging from the ceiling. And all of it is rotten. A room-temperature cornucopia of mold.

  Addis’s lips bunch and his brows squeeze down tight. He walks stiffly back into the kitchen and stands in a corner with his face to the wall, fists clenched at his sides.

  Nora takes a deep breath and holds it, steps into the freezer and stares at the festering heaps of locally sourced organic ingredients. She thinks about those gameshow contestants, how they always took losing so well. They were college kids and single moms, hungry dropouts and desperate debt-cripples, and when the wheel informed them they’d just lost a life-changing sum of money and would go home with nothing, they laughed and sighed and clapped for their own demise. Aw, darn!

  This is a different kind of show. The prize is not cash or a set of golf clubs; it’s another day of life for Nora and her brother, and she is not about to lose politely.

  She dives into the compost heap, knocking aside tubs of slimy asparagus, dumping bins of green chicken breasts, digging down through the mess as furry green sausages slap against her face. She gags frompe.he gags the smell and nearly vomits when her hand sinks into a turkey frothing with maggots. But at the bottom of it all, in a corner under some rat-gnawed bags of flour, she finds a box. She opens the box, and it’s full of cans.

  “Addis!” she shouts.

  It’s not a large box. Just three cans and a plastic tub: peeled potatoes, baby corns, tofu, and some slightly rancid margarine. Not a life-changing win…but enough to pay off all their hunger debts with a little left to spare.

  She stands up with the box and finds Addis in the doorway, wide-eyed. “Guess what, Adderall?” She grins, savoring the novelty of what she’s about to say. “We’re going to have dinner tonight.”

  • • •

  Pommes frites, fried in margarine. Baby corn, sautéed in margarine. Margarine-infused tofu, with margarine sauce. It’s the tastiest meal Nora has eaten since this impromptu family vacation began.

  “You’re a disaster,” she says, watching Addis shovel handfuls of dripping potatoes into his mouth. He has wasted no time staining the white linen tablecloth and spilling all his cranberry juice on the floor. “You’re lucky you know the chef.”

  They have the best table in the house and the view is spectacular: all of Seattle spreads out for them through the floor-to-ceiling windows, fading east into the blue of the Cascades. Nora imagines bow-tied servers checking in on them, asking if they’ve saved room for dessert. She has always wondered what creme brulée tastes like.

  “These fries are way better than the ones at that gas station,” Addis says through a mouthful.

  “Glad you think so. Healthier, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Slightly.”

  “That’s good.”

  Nora smiles. A few months ago, the word “healthy” would have made him spit out his food. It’s a bittersweet thing to see him finally valuing nutrition.

  “Do you think they have music?” he wonders.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “If someone comes up the elevator, we might not hear them.”

  “So? They’ll hear us and then they can have dinner with us.”

  “Addis…”

  “What?”

  Nora glances around. Addis watches her.

  “Fine. Let me go check.”

  She makes a quick circuit of the restaurant, looking for the stereo controls but looking even harder for any signs that they’re not alone. Those bandages. The blood is brown; they’re at least a day or two old. She finds no other traces, so when she finds the stereo, plugged into some cleanup crewman’s battered iPod, she spins through its playlists with a certain thrill, hoping to find something they can both enjoy.

  “Billie Holiday?” she yells at Addis.

  “Boring!”

  “The Beatles?”

  “They suck!”

  “You little shit,” she laughs. “I’m putting it on shuffle.”

  She presses play without looking and walks back to the table. Some soft piano begins, then a high, whispery voice layered with fragile harmonies.

  “What’s this?” Addis says, wrinkling his nose.

  “Sounds like Sigur Ros.”

  “Why do you always listen to oldd n>ol music!” Addis groans.

  “This isn’t that old.”

  “It’s like a million years old.”

  Nora sighs and flicks one of Addis’s spilled corns onto his shirt. A glint comes into his eye. He picks up a piece of tofu.

  “No,” Nora snaps, pointing her fork at him. “We are absolutely not food-fighting with this meal. Put it down.”

  Addis hesitates, sizing up her resolve.

  “Sir?” she says in cop-voice, “I need you to put the tofu down immediately.”

  He pops it in his mouth. Nora nods and eats some corn. They smile at each other as they chew.

  The restaurant moves so slowly it’s barely perceptible, but Nora notices they’ve made half a revolution since they arrived. The view of the Cascade Mountains has been replaced by the Puget Sound, pink and red, set ablaze by the setting sun. In the evening dimness, with the buildings all just silhouettes, the city looks perfectly normal. Many of the downtown highrises are dark, but a few still have power, their tiny windows blinking on and off like Christmas lights. She watches her brother shoving fries into his mouth and somehow getting them in his hair, and she wonders where she’s taking him. When they spend a whole day walking, where are they walking to? She has been avoiding this thought, but here it is again, insistent: she has no idea. She has no destination, or even a direction. She is making them walk because motion is the only plan she has. Because stillness is death.

  Addis is looking out the window now, following her gaze. Her focus shifts to their reflections in the glass, ghostly faces surrounded by constellations of ceiling lights, and she is struck again by how different they are. He is tiny even for his age; Nora is already taller than her mother. His skin is dark like his father’s; hers has more of her mother mixed in—coffee with Irish cream. Her hair is a briar of loose coils; his is a tightly woven nest that floats over his head collecting leaves, cobwebs, French fries. It’s in desperate need of grease, so dry she could probably snap a chunk off in her fingers. His skin, too, so ashy he almost looks dead. It hits her suddenly how fragile he is. How constantly vulnerable. She doubted her ability to be a mother even before the end of the world. How is she going to do it now?

  “Nora?”

  He is looking at her uneasily. She wonders what her face has been doing for the last few minutes. She blinks away the beginnings of a tear.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” she says, and stands up. The music has shifted to something modern, one of those new pop songs Addis and his friends used to listen to ba
ck in D.C. It murmurs and clangs, slow and dark, the singer’s androgynous voice doubled note for note by a mournful viola. It gives her goosebumps, and she makes a note to skip it on her way back. She never thought she’d be out of touch with youth culture by age sixteen. The darkness came so abruptly her tastes never had a chance to adjust, and now it all just scares her. She retreats into the past, to the records Auntie Shirley used to play while they built Legos in the living room. Some Ella or Billie or Frank would be nice right now, despite Addis’s protests. There are worse feelings than boredom.

  She pushes into the women’s restroom and leans against the sink, fighting for composure. She looks in the mirror at her tired red eyes. She sees a large mound in the corner of the room, heaving slowly under a tablecloth.

  • • •

  “Addis, get your stuff.”

  “Wha a left">t?”

  “We’re leaving.”

  “But I’m not done eat—”

  “Addis!”

  He looks up at her, startled.

  “Get your stuff.”

  Addis grabs his NPR tote bag and stuffs his hatchet in next to a few Ziploc bags of leftover food. Nora takes his hand and marches toward the elevator.

  “What’s going on?”

  “There’s something in the bathroom.”

  “Something?”

  “Something or someone.”

  “Someone bad?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “But what if it’s someone good?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  She drags her brother into the elevator and presses the lobby button. The elevator drops, pushing stomach bile into her throat.

  “But I thought that’s why we’re walking around! I thought we’re trying to find people who can help us.”

  “This person can’t help us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because they’re lying on the floor under a bloody tablecloth.”

  “Are they hurt?”

  “At least.”

  “Then shouldn’t we help them?”

  Nora pauses. She looks at her brother. It’s a strange feeling, being judged by a child. He’s seven years old; where the hell did he get a moral compass? Certainly not from his parents. Not even from her. She supposes there must be people in the world who stick to their principles, who always do the right thing, but they are few and far between, especially now. Where does a child get an idea as unnatural as goodness?

  The elevator reaches the bottom. Addis watches Nora hopefully. She sighs and presses the restaurant’s floor. They ascend.

  The silver Tahoe is low on gas. Julie can hear her father muttering about it every few minutes, scanning the surrounding landscape for likely filling stations. Eventually, on some obscure cue, he takes an exit into what appears to be a primeval forest. There are no signs advertising food or gas or civilization of any kind, but after a few miles a tiny truck stop appears, halfway hidden in the trees. Most of the city stations are drained dry. To find gas or anything else of value anymore, they have to look where no one else would think to. They have to turn logic backward and trust intuition, a skill Julie was surprised to find in Colonel John Grigio’s stern repertoire.

  “Does Dad have super smell?” she asks her mother as they watch him hook the hand-pump into the station’s diesel reservoir.

  “What?”

  “How’d he know there was gas out here?”

  “I don’t know. He’s just smart that way.” She watches her husband work the pump, filling the first of six plastic gas cans. “You have to appreciate that,” she says in a quieter voice that Julie can barely hear. “If nothing else, the man’s certainly capable.”

  The sickly sweet, rotten-apricot smell of chemically preserved fuel floods the air, and Julie watches her mother press a fold of her dress against her nose as a filter. A white dress, pulled in at the waist by a bright red sash. She doesntheret t seem to care that the hem is brown with dirt and engine grease, that there are small rips all over it revealing bare skin. The dress is pretty, so she wears it. Julie loves her for that, even though she herself is wearing Carhartt jeans and a grey t-shirt.

  “I have to pee,” she announces and hops out of the car.

  “Not alone. I’ll go with you.”

  “I’m twelve, Mom.”

  “Rapists don't check ID.” She grabs her Ruger 9mm off the dash and gets out of the truck. Julie rolls her eyes and walks around the back of the station with her mother in tow. She drops her jeans, her mother hikes her dress, and they crouch in the bushes.

  “Remember those wine parties you and Dad used to throw?” Julie says.

  “Sure.”

  “I wish we could have one now. I’m old enough to have a whole glass, right?”

  “I’d say so. Don’t know about your dad though.”

  “I’ll talk him into it.”

  Her mother smiles. “Maybe we can do something when we find the enclave. A housewarming party.”

  Julie watches her urine pool around her work boots. She browses the decades of graffiti scratched and sprayed onto the station’s wall.

  Big Dick Tim wuz here

  Tim sux big dick

  God still loves us

  God loves corpses

  NEVER GIVE UP

  STAY HUMAN

  DIE

  “I want to get wasted,” Julie mutters.

  Her mother laughs.

  Julie wipes with a leaf and buttons her jeans. A dead thorn branch catches on her mother’s dress and pulls away with her when she stands. Her husband is waiting around the corner and he watches her tug at the branch until it finally rips free, tearing a surprisingly large hole in the bodice.

  “You need some real clothes,” he says. “We’re not out for a picnic.”

  “Fuck off, John,” she says cheerfully and brushes past him.

  “By the time we get to the enclave you’re going to be wearing a bikini.”

  “The better to seduce their leader.”

  She climbs into the truck and sits there waiting. Julie watches her father’s jaw flex for a moment, then she gets in behind her mother. She thinks about wine parties. She thinks about their old house. She thinks about the day she found out her father used to have a band, and how her mother played his album for her and she laughed even though it was good, because how else could she react to the revelation that her father was human?

  She focuses deep into the trees as they drive back to the freeway, searching for wildlife. Birds, deer, something stupid and innocent that she can pretend to be for a while. Surely creatures that simple know how to be happy.

  The tall man is in pain.

  The feeling that began in his stomach has now spread throughout his entire body and somehow beyond it. It radiates out from him like a cloud of ghosts, countless hands clutching at the air, reaching out for…something. He wishes he knew what it wanted, but it is a mindless brute. It lashes him onward with unintel Fhlingligible grunts of need.

  In some distant compartment of his mind, he is aware that the forest is beautiful. Despite the darkness and musty tomb smell, there is a silence and softness that he finds comforting. He runs his hands along mossy tree trunks as he passes, enjoying their texture. Like wool, he thinks. Like blankets. Her skin was—

  Something shifts. He can still feel the moss but it has been reduced to information: Soft. Cool. Damp. He no longer understands why he is wasting energy touching a tree, so he drops his hands and walks faster.

  He is in a forest. He is surrounded by trees. He is wearing a tie the color his blood used to be, and slacks the color his blood is now. He is tall and thin but strong for his build—he surprises himself by snapping a branch as thick as his wrist. He carries it for a while like a club, because the forest is dark and he has seen creatures that aren’t like him lurking in the shadows. Things that walk on four legs, covered in soft stuff like moss—fur—wolves. The forest is full of wolves, which he remembers are dangerous, and he f
eels afraid. But after a few hours the fear fades; he loses interest in the branch and tosses it aside.

  It is becoming harder for him to maintain interest in anything but the hollowness. He is aware that tools and weapons might help him get what he wants, but what does he want? The hollowness seems to know, but it can’t be bothered to explain. It pulses and pounds with one vague agenda, reflexively vetoing all other initiatives, even ones that might help it achieve its goals—such as carrying a weapon. The tall man will get no help from these impulses. He must decipher himself by himself.

  He thinks about the wolves. He understands that they are not like him and that they want to hurt him. Maybe he wants to hurt them too. Maybe that’s what he wants. Maybe creatures that are not like each other are supposed to hurt each other to find out which one is stronger, so that the stronger one can take the things it wants. A competition. A game. War! Sex! Football!

  His eyes widen with these sudden bursts of insight. He is happy that he is remembering things. Perhaps soon he will have enough information to do whatever the brute in his belly is demanding.

  “Hello?”

  The thing under the tablecloth continues to heave. The bloodstain in the middle of the cloth is bright red. Spreading.

  “Hey. Are you alive?”

  Nora stands in the bathroom doorway with her hatchet at the ready. Addis stands behind her, trembling despite all his noble ideals.

  Nora takes a step inside.

  “Listen. If you’re still alive, you need to give me some kind of sign or we’re gonna leave.”

  The cloth shifts slightly. A hand slides out from under it, palm down on the floor.

  “Okay, that shows me you’re still moving, but I need to know you’re capital-L Living. So if you’re not Dead, tap twice.”

  There is a long hesitation. The hand taps twice.

  Addis grabs her shirt hem. She rubs his head.

  “Okay,” she says under her breath and approaches the heaving mound. Holding her hatchet high, ready to strike, she pulls the tablecloth away.

  Addis hides his eyes behind his hands and starts whimpering.