Molt

I used to salivate at the scent of frying chicken in the back of a gas station. Now, my mouth floods with a viscous, milky-gray mucus when the dead ripen. I try to avoid it by staying in parts of the hotel where no one has died, but hunger always steers me to a new room when the craving becomes unbearable. Tonight, it’s 214. I stand outside with the master key in hand, sniffing the air to count the bodies on the other side of the door.

I don’t want to do this. I pretend I don’t have to. Instinct wins.

The seam of flesh where my nose used to be quivers. Saliva drips from my new mouth as the three sections begin to open like a flower unfurling. When I enter the room, my entire face unfolds, exposing sharp, hooked teeth that descend in a spiral down my throat.

I try not to look at their faces. I don’t want to think of them as what they once were—what I once was—living, breathing, human.

I make it quick. If I linger, something worse than hunger blooms inside me. Pleasure.

When I finish, I lean against the wall and wait for what comes next. Feeding is grotesque. The molt is worse.

The long, rope-like breathing vents that replaced my hair hang around my face and run down my spine. They flare and tighten with each gasping breath, pulling in dust and breathing it out, damp and clean. The rest of my body heats up from within. My pitch-black skin bubbles. Every muscle contracts until I’m shaking against the wall. I embrace the pain. My own instant karma.

White pearlescent fluid swells beneath the blisters and bursts through. It leaks out of every pore. My skin loosens with the pressure. It sloughs away, dragging the white seepage down with it in wet sheets. I turn my face before I have to watch it slide free. The sound of it plopping to the floor sends a shiver through me.

Underneath, the new flesh is raw when the air touches it. Then it darkens, hardening over black and glossy like a shell. It burns for a moment, settling once the shed is complete. My breathing slows, and I can feel the hunger again, tugging at me right away.

I leave the molt behind.

Soon it will dry into a fine powder. It reeks of hot waste, turning my stomach. Piles like this one are scattered all over the hotel. In housekeeping closets, behind locked doors, and littered throughout the lobby.

I avoid those spaces, too.

Even a beast shouldn’t shit where it sleeps.

The fire door slams shut behind me. Standing still in the stairwell, I wait for the rush to subside. The building creaks in the wind. Then a sound rings through the concrete shaft.

A cough.

It’s hard to forget the sounds of humanity, especially while mourning the loss of your own. I remember the asteroid better than I can recall what my face used to look like. I remember the impact, the dust that followed—thick enough to black out the sun. When I came to, I was changed, and everyone else was dead. I thought I was alone.

The cough comes again.

I hear a girl whisper, “Come on. Through here.”

Over the handrail, I watch as two shadows move from the emergency exit into the lobby of the hotel.

“Wow,” I hear the boy say when he enters the forest of my waste.

I sneak to the mezzanine. From here, I can watch through the plate-glass wall. When I decide to get closer, I stalk down the grand staircase, gentle and light, so they don’t hear me.

They smell nauseating and sweet like the black, trumpet-shaped flowers growing out of my old molts. Underneath that, the same salty stench the dust has left on the dead. The boy is worse off than the girl. He’s closer to ripe than she is, but nowhere near ready.

“What is it?” His face is pale, his eyes sunken and bruised with exhaustion.

“It’s delicious.” She runs to the corner.

I want to rush out and yell stop, but I’m not even sure if I can do more than make visceral sounds at this point. All I can do is watch, wide-eyed, as she reaches up and plucks a bulbous growth off one of the vines. She bites into the meaty, maroon flesh. Dark red juice drips down her chin.

Bits of the fruit fall out of her mouth when she says, “I ate three of these, and I swear I started breathing better.”

The boy bites into the red fruit, hesitant and unsure. “Yeah,” he gulps the food down. “The air’s cleaner in here, though. It could just be that.” He shrugs and sinks his teeth into another mouthful.

She nods at the door. “I breathe better out there, too. Explain that, smart guy?”

He says nothing, indulging in his second piece of fruit.

“Should we tell the others?” she asks.

He stops chewing.

I step forward.

Others?

The muscles of the fleshy tubes draped down my back stop flexing when I hold my breath. More survivors could be dangerous. If I were still one of them, I’d welcome the company. Others sounds like a group of people who would hunt down a monster.

“Do you think they could make it here?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Some of them are pretty bad. Maybe if they eat this fruit, though.”

He hisses through his teeth, considering the thought. “I’m not sure they will. We don’t know what this’ll do to us.”

“You haven’t coughed since we walked in here.” She says, “They’ll try it.”

The boy takes a deep breath. His wet wheeze is gone.

I knew the flowers and vines were cleaning the air. That much I could feel. It’s harder for me to breathe in rooms full of growth. I prefer the dust. But the survivors—the fruit that seems to heal them; I couldn’t have guessed.

“My chest doesn’t hurt anymore,” he tells her.

“See?” She looks around the lobby. “There are plenty of rooms here for everyone. We’ve been in that bunker for a year. Let’s look around and see what else there is.”

I want to growl, rushing down the stairs to drive them out before they can carry this idea of sanctuary back to the others. One good inhale would splay my breathing tubes, making me appear larger, scarier. I could open all three jaws and bare my teeth.

But I don’t. That could draw the rest of their people here sooner.

“Not alone,” the boy says. “We’ll take some of this back to Dad. If it helped us, it might help him. He’ll know what to do.”

That gives me time.

She nods. They stuff their bags and pockets full. When they leave, I know they’ll be back. The only thing left to decide is what they’re coming back to. Do I lock them out, or finish what I’ve started?

I’m halfway to the valet booth, prepared to park cars in front of every entrance. Let them return to barricades and dead air. Why should I let them have this place?

I woke hungry and alone. The hotel was the only thing left that was familiar. It fed me, became more than just shelter. It’s all I’ve got.

Still, I can’t shake what I saw in the boy. The color returned to his face as he ate. I watched him improve. What I left behind helped him breathe. Why send them back into the ash just to keep this place mine? The city is full of dead things. I won’t starve. Maybe getting the hotel ready for them is the only way I’ll ever preserve a piece of myself.

The craving surges, unmistakable. This time, it feels like purpose.

If they come back now, they’ll find bodies in locked rooms. Or worse, they might find me. But if I clear the hotel—if I feed, molt, and leave the fruit, flowers, and vines—this place could keep them alive. That has to be enough. I don’t have to be here when they return, but I could leave them something worth staying for.

This isn’t heroism. It’s work.

Once I start, I don’t stop. Floor after floor, the hunger makes space for more. In the conference room, among overturned chairs, the burning dims to something bearable. By the bridal suite, the molting feels less like a punishment and more like a rhythm. I stop thinking and move on instinct.

The feeding speeds up. Shedding becomes easier. Each new shell is tougher and warmer than the last. I don’t sleep; I keep going until the hotel is filled with my waste and I can no longer smell the ripeness inside.

I know I’m finished when I see them crossing the empty, ashen street toward the hotel in a thin, uneven line. By the time they reach the front door, I’m already at the loading dock.

I don’t look back. The dust out here is poison to them. I breathe it in and thrive. Whatever remade the world also remade me.

Back there, the hotel waits, filled with fresh air and dark fruit on the vines.

Let them have it.

I step into the gray and keep walking. Out here, whole blocks are starting to smell ripe. The hotel was only the beginning. The city is full and waiting for me.