Consumed (14 page)

Joel pulled the knife from Tammy’s chest, where he had stuck it for a second time, and looked at Robert who was still standing by his seat.

“You really should have given your friend a weapon too,” Robert said - a menacing tone in his voice and his eyes fixed on Joel. “You think you can get to me before I can get to her? Look at her skinny little neck...No weapon to protect herself from me...It won’t take much for me to snap her neck. I may be older than you but I bet I can move quicker,” he winked at Joel. “Really should have given her a wea...”

Joel cut him short, “Get out, Lara. Go and get help.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Oh how noble,” Robert teased.

“Just go!” he insisted.

“But you better run fast, little girl, because I’m right behind you,” Robert smiled and did a biting motion with his mouth. “Working up quite an appetite here.”

“Fuck you!” hissed Lara.

“A lot of people saying that to me today,” Robert pointed out. “They’re all dead now. Just saying. The two might not be related but, if they are, you’re fucked.”

“Fuck you!” she reiterated.

Robert laughed.

Lara turned and ran from the room - straight back into the hallway and towards the front door. She didn’t look back as she hurried towards it. Once there, she twisted the handle only to find it was locked. The sound of a car engine outside, followed by a wheel-spin. Someone clearly in a hurry to leave the property.

She tried the handle again on the off chance it was just stiff, “Fuck!” The kitchen, she thought, could have had a back door. Without knowing how much time she had to spare, she hurried back down the hallway into the kitchen where the stench of gas hit her. A quick glance at the hobs - everything was on, even the oven which had been left open. No time to worry about that as a crash came from the dining room. She rushed over to the back door and pulled at it but it didn’t budge - locked just as the front door had been.

Joel screamed from the other room.

“Come on, please!” she screamed at the door as she continued to tug at the handle in the hope it would magically unlock itself.

“We rarely keep that door unlocked,” said Robert from behind her.

She span around and screamed when she saw him standing in the doorway, coated in blood and clutching the knife.

“Don’t be so afraid,” he said, “it’s not my blood...You’ll be pleased to hear...I’m actually okay...Although, I don’t think your friend is going to make it if I’m going to be honest.” He did his best to give a sympathetic smile before he started to laugh. He took a step closer, “Just so you know...I’m really going to enjoy eating you.” Lara started to cry. “Oh, don’t cry...Makes the skin all salty...I’ve been trying my best to keep salt out of my diet. My wife...She says it’s bad for you and, well, apparently it is. See, I didn’t know if she was telling the truth so I looked it up. Apparently too much salt is definitely bad for you.”

“Why are you doing this?”

He took another step closer.

“Because I can!” Robert said. He held the knife up and waved it at her. “Now, you going to save me the effort and come to me or are you going to make me come all the way over there?”

Lara, panicked, looked over to the wall where she saw a light switch. With a final scream she lunged forward and hit it with her elbow - her eyes closed tightly as though it would protect her from the explosion...She opened her eyes. The lights were on. There was no explosion.

Robert smiled and walked over to the hobs where he turned everything off, “The gas needs enough time to build up pressure,” he informed her. “All this has succeeded in is making you look stupid and giving me a headache...So...Yeah...Well done for that.” He opened the window above the kitchen sink. “Be fine when we let a little air in.”

Lara screamed as Robert suddenly rushed towards her - the knife held outright.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Andrea felt her face redden. Standing in the queue, to pay for the petrol for her son’s truck, she realised she’d left her purse at home by leaving in such a hurry.

“Next!” said the cashier having waved the last customer off.

“I’m sorry,” said Andrea, “I’ve just realised...” She whispered so as not to be overheard by the customers behind her which would only embarrass her further, “I’ve left my purse at home.”

“Failed to see the sign then?” asked the cashier with an expression on his face which implied he had heard it all before.

“Which one would that be?”

“The one that warns you to make sure you have enough money to pay before using the pumps?” the cashier continued. A smug look on his face as though he was enjoying Andrea’s embarrassed squirming. “We just need you to fill in a form,” he said.

“A form?” she watched as the lanky cashier jumped up from his stool to fetch a form from across the other side of where he was serving. “What kind of form?”

“Name, address, phone number...That sort of thing. Gives us your details so we know you’ll be coming back to make the payment at some point.”

“Oh, I see. My home address?”

“That would be the one,” he passed the form over to Andrea, along with a half-chewed blue ballpoint pen, “there you go.”

Andrea hesitated for a second.

“We have your car registration on camera so the police would know where to find you - this is just a back-up,” the cashier informed her - aware that she didn’t seem in a hurry to pass over her details.

“The police?”

The cashier nodded, “Sometimes we get people who don’t pay for their petrol. Clearly you’re not one of those people. Obviously you’ve just left your purse at home, like you said, but...Sometimes...”

Andrea started to fill in her details. The cashier turned away to serve those waiting in the queue behind her. Andrea knew she couldn’t go home to get her purse. For years she had wanted to run away from the terrors under the roof but she was always too afraid to make a run for it just in case they found her trying to run - her husband, more to the point. Instead she just went along with the way he ruled the house to keep the peace. It was safer that way. She didn’t want to end up as a meal and it wasn’t as though they didn’t eat well. It certainly was a delicious taste, when they managed to bring the meat home.

At the start it all began so innocently. A hunting accident during a deepfreeze.  The worst the country had seen for well over a decade with the deepest snow they’d ever seen themselves. They couldn’t get out to go and get food. The snow and ice lasted for months and the problem with living in the middle of nowhere was that the routes to their house were rarely salted making it hard to venture out for supplies. The body of their middle son was just sitting there, in the barn - even after their cupboards ran dry. To start off with - it was a necessity - but, afterwards, it became a simple pleasure. With the taste so good it was easy to forget what it was - or who it was.

Over the years they tried cooking the meat in various ways but they always found the best way to eat it was raw - whilst the person was still living and breathing. Andrea knew it was wrong but she couldn’t stop herself. The taste of the meat was too good to pass up and it squashed any thoughts of right and wrong. Until recently that is. Recently she was starting to think of themselves as the monsters they really were. She didn’t believe in stories of Wendigo, or other such creatures, but she knew that people like her husband and her belonged in Hell. Now, today, she wished she could take it all back. She wished they had all starved when the food did run out, during that deepfreeze. Often she even found herself wondering whether they would have gone hungry or whether they could have made it until the thaw - a thought she always tried to suppress for she knew it was pointless to think like that.

She couldn’t remember how she was talked into eating the people alive. She couldn’t even remember if it was her who needed convincing. Part of her thought it could have been her who convinced the others to do it. The greed of human flesh robbing her of any sane thoughts? There was even talk of opening their own restaurant where other people could come and dine on the delights of humans - something they often joked about as they sat around, on a Sunday afternoon, making up potential menus.

“Adam’s Apple Crumble,” she muttered to herself with a smile on her face.

“I’m sorry?” the cashier asked as he walked back over to her.

She snapped back to reality, “Nothing. I’m sorry. Here.”

She had put a fake address down on the sheet which she handed back to the cashier. She had no intention of going home to get the money just in case her husband was still alive and she was dragged back into the argument. She had made it this far and was damned if she was going back just to try and get away from them again. She decided she’d have to raise the money some other way. Find the money to pay the cashier back before the police were alerted. She didn’t want to go home but she knew she couldn’t have the police go there either.

If her husband had survived, or any of the other family members had survived, she knew it would be bad enough with them hunting for her. She didn’t need the police hunting her too. That would have been too much.

“Thank you,” said the cashier. He placed the form on the side.

A fake address to slow them down if she didn’t manage to get back, with some cash, in the next twenty-four hours. She’d make it back. She had to. She gave the cashier a fake smile and left the petrol station.

She jumped into the front seat of the car, turned the ignition, and drove from the forecourt. She drove for a few miles down the road, with various scenarios running through her head, before she suddenly pulled the car over to one side. Nervously she climbed out and walked around to the boot. She opened it up and looked inside, “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m going to need to borrow some money.”

Michael laid in the boot, his hands and feet bound and a gag around his mouth...His eyes full of fear.

- END

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