Tender is the Flesh(36)

“We’re getting probiotics from all the hard drugs Ulises injected,” one of them says and they all laugh loudly.

Urlet doesn’t respond, just regards them with a half-smile stuck on his face. He looks at Urlet and knows that the entity, whatever it is that’s in there, scratching at the man’s skin from the inside, wants to howl and slice through the air with a sharp, cutting wail.

Guerrero Iraola gives them a look that restores order, and asks a question: “How was Ulises Vox hunted?”

“I caught him off guard in what appeared to be a hiding spot. He had the bad luck of moving just as I walked by,” the hunter says.

“Right, with your bionic ear, no one gets away,” says the man who shot the pregnant female.

“Lisandrito is a master,” Guerrero Iraola says, the last word in English, “like all of the Nú?ez Guevaras. The family’s got the best hunters in the country.” He points his fork full of flesh to the hunter and says, “Next time Urlet has a celebrity for us, leave him for me, kid.” It’s a clear threat and Lisandrito lowers his eyes.

Guerrero Iraola raises his glass and they all toast Lisandrito and his lineage of first-class hunters.

“How many days did he have left?” someone asks Urlet.

“Today was his last day. He had five hours left.”

They all applaud and clink their glasses.

Except for him. He’s thinking of Jasmine.





6




He knows he’ll be home late. It’s a long drive, but he doesn’t want to stay in a hotel like he used to, before Jasmine. He’s been on the road for several hours and knows it’ll be night when he gets in.

He passes the abandoned zoo but doesn’t stop because it’s dark and because he never wants to return. The last time he was there he didn’t yet know that Jasmine was pregnant. He needed to clear his mind and wanted to go to the aviary.

As he neared the building, he heard shouts and laughter. The sounds were coming from the serpentarium. He approached slowly, rounding the aviary to see if he could find a window so he wouldn’t have to go inside.

One of the walls was broken. He went up to it cautiously and saw a group of teenagers. There were six or seven of them. They were holding sticks.

The teenagers were in the puppies’ serpentarium. They’d broken the glass. He could see that the puppies were in there, curled up against each other, trembling, whimpering with fear.

Weeks before, he’d petted those puppies. Now he saw a teenager grab one of the four brothers and throw him into the air. Another teenager, the tallest of the lot, hit the pup with a stick, as though he were a ball. The creature struck the wall and fell to the floor, dead, very close to one of his brothers, who’d already been killed.

They all applauded and one of them said, “Let’s smash their brains against the wall. I wanna see what it feels like.”

He grabbed the third puppy and struck the animal’s head repeatedly against the wall. “It’s like smashing a melon or a piece of shit. Let’s see what happens with the last one.”

The last puppy tried to defend himself, to bark. That’s Jagger, he thought, while his rage ate away at him because he knew he couldn’t save the pup, because he wouldn’t be able to stop them on his own. Jagger bit the hand of the teenager who was about to throw him into the air. As he looked on at the scene, he felt a sense of pleasure at Jagger’s small revenge.

The teenagers laughed, at first, but then they grew still, silent.

“You’re gonna die, idiot. I told you to grab it by the neck.”

The teenager was quiet, he didn’t know how to react.

“Now you have the virus.”

“You’re contaminated.”

“You’re gonna die.”

The others all took a few steps back, in fear.

“The virus is a lie, dickheads.”

“But the government…”

“What about the government? You don’t actually believe that lot of corrupt leeches, the fucking motherfuckers we have for a government.”

While the teenager was saying this, he shook Jagger in the air.

“No, but there were people who died.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Can’t you see they’re controlling us? If we eat each other, they control overpopulation, poverty, crime. Do you want me to keep going? I mean it’s obvious.”

“Yeah, like in that movie that was banned where at the end everyone’s eating each other and they don’t know it,” the tallest one said.

“What movie?”

“The movie was… it was called Destiny is Catching Up to Us or something dumb like that. We saw it on the dark web, it’s hard to find because it’s banned.”

“Oh yeah, mate, I remember it. It’s the one where they eat those green crackers that are really made of people.”

The teenager holding Jagger continued to shake the puppy in the air, with more force, and shouted, “I’m not gonna die for this piece of shit of an animal.”

He said it with resentment and fear, and threw Jagger hard against the wall. Jagger fell to the floor, but was still alive, crying, whining.

“What if we light it on fire?” another one asked.

And he could take no more.