The Hunger(39)

“The rest of them, they’d let a man starve even when they got food enough to get by. They’re only out for themselves. If it were up to them, I’d be dead already.”

“Please, Mr. Halloran.” The pulse transformed to a single, unifying rhythm. She was afraid. She could hardly breathe for the smell of rotting. What had happened to him? She had known disease to come back but not like this, not so quickly it would hollow a man in an hour. “You’re not well. Be calm, now. I’m going to get you help.”

“No one else can help me.” His smile ended in a grimace of pain. “I’m dying, Tamsen. That’s why I come to you. You were my savior before—will you be my savior again?” He seemed to have difficulty breathing. She had to wait for him to gasp more air. “Will you do something for me?”

“Of course I will,” she said. Her voice sounded thin. Why had she left her lantern up on the bank? The darkness was so thick it felt like the pressure of a hand.

His eyes were closed again. His fingers relaxed against her wrist. Yet he was still trying to speak—he whispered something too quiet for her to make out, and whispered it again. She could see the effort it required; he was forcing out these broken words with the very last of his strength.

His beautiful hands, his soft brown eyes, his quiet humor—all of it gone, ravaged by whatever sickness was devouring him. She was surprised to realize she was on the verge of tears.

He was still trying to speak. “I can’t hear you,” Tamsen said softly. Then, “Be still, Luke.” But she watched him struggle to be heard.

She leaned closer—so close that his lips, when they moved again, moved against her cheek. Finally she could make out what he was saying.

“I’m hungry.” Again and again: a whispered note of agony. “I’m hungry, Tamsen.”

He opened his eyes again, and she saw nothing but a deep pit, and she saw, too, that he was smiling.

He knocked her backward. He leapt, or sprang, pinning her easily, and she knew in a wild way that the rest of it had been a trap, a lure to get her close and unguarded. He was on top of her, holding a knife. Where had it come from? “I won’t ask much.”

“Please,” she said. Her voice broke. She was no longer thinking straight. It was a dream, it had to be, a nightmare that would wake her up with a scream lodged in her throat. This madman was not Halloran. “Please, let me up.”

But he only gripped her harder. “You don’t know what it’s like, to be starving. The pain of it. It hollows you. It’s all I can think about. Even my blood is starving.” He bent to put his face against her neck—he inhaled, he breathed in the smell of her body, he moved his tongue across her sweat, as a dog would. This broke her; it was as if some invisible barrier had been irrevocably breached, as if with a single movement he had undone God’s work, and turned her from a woman to a sludge of flesh.

“I could take it if I had to, from you or one of the others. You see, don’t you, how easy it would be for me to take it?” He was everywhere and all over her. There was no end to him, to his weight and his stink and his hunger. “But I don’t want to do that. I’d rather you gave it to me freely, like a friend would.”

The pain in her wrists where he held her helped her focus. Mary had gone for help. She must have gone for help. She simply had to humor him, to play along until someone arrived. “Of course,” she said. “Of course. Like a friend would.” She wasn’t even sure if he heard her. “I’ve always taken care of you, haven’t I?”

She could gasp out the words—he was heavier, stronger than he should be. Madmen, she knew, were said to possess incredible strength. She was nearly blind with terror. If she got free, could she outrun him? It was a risk. And if he chased her down? He still had her pinned beneath him, though he was no longer leaning on her neck with one arm.

“You promise to help,” he said finally. “You promise you won’t let me go hungry?”

She could only nod. And after a moment, he eased his weight off her—and she managed to grab the knife out of his hand.

Just as her fingers closed around the handle, there was a commotion behind her, the rustle of reeds and the snap of dry wood and voices. She heard Mary Graves shout, “This way. Over here.”

Tamsen almost cried out with relief. She was saved.

But in that second, Halloran changed. At least she thought he did; she saw his whole being twist, contort, as if it had been winched around some broken internal dial, tethered down to hell. Broken apart and changed into something else. He wasn’t himself; he wasn’t even a man. His eyes were full black, as blank and featureless as the bottom of a well. His face seemed to have narrowed. She smelled blood on his breath. It was as though an animal inside him had erupted at that very moment, breaking through his human shell.

He bared his teeth. Give me what I want or I’ll take it . . . I’m starving.

The face she looked into wasn’t human anymore.

And just as Mary hurtled into the clearing, just as he drew back, showing his teeth, and she knew, in a single instant of calm, that she would die, Tamsen drove the tip of the blade into his throat and yanked it sideways, feeling the resistance of the tendons and the windpipe, snapping them, her hand quickly drenched in a gush of warm blood.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN