Still Hungry

TW: mild language, talk of violence, body horror

Brett felt his stomach growl again. Three days had gone by since he had eaten the last granola bar from his backpack. He looked up at a gap in the foliage, trying to gauge the time using the position of the sun. The sun's rays were weak, hardly cutting through the hazy sky and the thinning canopy. He figured it was close to 2 pm. They had been wandering the woods lost for over 120 hours.

They hadn't even planned on spending the night, it was supposed to be just a day hike. The weather had been warm the day they left, so they had only been wearing sweatshirts, jeans and beanies. They didn't even bring gloves. The days since have been crisp and cold and the nights have been downright freezing. On the third night they woke up with a light dusting of snow on their clothes and Stella thought she had frostbite in her pinky finger.

“I can't keep going, I feel like I'm going to pass out. I'm so thirsty,” Stella's breathless voice said from behind him. Brett stopped and turned around.

“Well that sucks, because I'm not going to carry you. If you want to stop here you can, but I'll leave you behind. I'm going to continue on in the hopes that I won’t be spending another night curled up under a tree shivering my ass off with an empty stomach and an empty canteen.”

“You wouldn't leave me!” Stella said, glaring at him.

“Just watch me. You're the one that got us into this mess anyways. YOU forgot the GPS in the car, and YOU’RE the reason we’ve been wandering the woods for five days!” Brett could feel his face getting hotter.

“I said sorry! I don't know what else to say.” Stella had tears welling up in her eyes.

"How about: I'm sorry were going to starve to death a forest that we shouldn't even be lost in. I'm sorry I'm going to get us both killed." They heard a twig snap behind Brett and both whipped their heads around towards the noise. They stood there, silent for a moment, just listening. They heard no more than rustling leaves on the breeze and the soft and distant song of the birds that don't migrate south for the winter.

“Wait a second. Do you smell that?” said Brett, sniffing the air.

“Brett, this isn’t a time to make jokes.” Stella choked back a sob.

“No, I'm serious, do you smell that? It smells like something cooking...” Brett turned to the left as he pushed through the undergrowth, nose still in the air. His stomach clenched in knots at the idea of food. Real food.

“Brett, wait!” Stella’s arms reached out to grab his backpack, desperate not to lose him in the thick brush. Vines and bushes eventually gave way to a small grassy clearing. In the middle stood a small hut with windows open like gaping mouths and clay walls crumbling with terrible age. An old wooden door stood ajar. “I can smell it now. It smells like heaven!” she said. Her stomach growled in response.

Wading through the tall grass, they walked up to the door and paused. Brett yelled, “Hello!! Anybody home? We need help!” Stella was hiding behind him, gripping his backpack. Brett crept closer, peering in the door. A large cauldron hung over a fire, and the sound of the fire crackling and soft bubbling could be heard. Steam rose from the cauldron and drifted up and out the door. Nobody was inside.

The smell from the cauldron was glorious. Neither of them had smelled anything more delicious in their entire lives. Next to the cauldron on a small table sat a few roughly crafted wooden bowls and spoons. There was what appeared to be old furniture lining the walls, a dirty looking bed, a moldy rotting dresser with a smudged mirror hanging crookedly above it, another old table close to countertop height, and what looked like a sink basin with no faucet.

Brett whispered, "I don't see anyone around... maybe if we are quick we can snag a bowl of whatever is cooking. It smells incredible."

“I don't know about this. I mean, whose house is this? Way out here in the middle of nowhere?” Stella whispered, raising her eyebrows.

"House? More like shack. Whoever it is will never know what happened. They left the door wide open anyways." Brett didn’t hesitate any longer, stepping inside the hut and picking up a bowl and spoon. He grabbed the ladle sticking out of the cauldron and filled a bowl to the brim. Stella lingered at the door.

“It appears you'd rather starve,” Brett spoke through a mouthful of soup, already downing half of the bowl. Stella felt her stomach growl again. She stepped in the hut and felt the welcoming warmth of the fire. She leaned her face over the pot to look inside, still unsure. The smell overwhelmed her and she finally lost control. She grabbed a bowl with a shaking hand and ladled soup into it.

For a few moments all they could hear was the bubbling cauldron, the crackle of the fire underneath it, the slurping of their hungry mouths and the wooden spoons scraping the bowls. Brett held his bowl up and let the final drops fall into his mouth, then reached for the ladle to get another serving.

A raspy voice came from behind them. “What do you think you're doing?” Looking over their shoulders, they saw a very old woman dressed in tattered rags standing in the opening of the door. Her hair looked matted and full of ugly dreads, and she was in desperate need of shampoo and a comb.

“We’re sorry, we didn't mean to intrude," Brett spoke up, “You see, the door was open and-”

“Ahhh I see, you think an open door just means you can walk in and steal an old woman’s dinner?”

Brett, ignoring her question, pressed on. “But we're lost and starving and-”

“I suppose there is enough to share. I will say though, very rude of you to come along and help yourself.” She shuffled across the hut and started rummaging in the drawer of the moldy dresser.

“Th-thank you ma’am. The smell… it was just so irresistible. We haven’t eaten in three days and it's well past lunch time, so we thought whoever was here might not mind sharing a little,” Brett replied.

“Three days? You call that starving? I’ve gone longer than that without eating and didn’t steal somebody else’s food,” the old woman croaked. Out of the drawer she pulled a short pointy knife. The shininess of the blade was a stark difference from anything else in the hut.

“We can leave. We can leave now and… and…. leave you alone,” Brett’s voice trembled. Stella had started backing away towards the door.

“Oh, no, don’t leave now! You haven’t even asked me my name. At least have some manners.” The old woman turned to a wooden table, pulled a dead squirrel from a pocket in her tattered clothing, and started skinning it. Brett and Stella looked at each other in silent agreement.

Throwing down the bowls they turned and hightailed it out of the hut, blasting through the grass and into the brush. Behind them they could hear the old woman yelling, “You’ll be back for more!”

Brett and Stella stumbled through the brush, branches scratching their arms and legs. Running for some time in no particular direction, they clawed through a particularly dense thicket of trees and finally stumbled onto pavement.

***

The neighborhood had been so excited for Brett and Stella's return that the day after they threw a huge backyard barbecue with all the fixings. Their friends and family all showed up in droves to celebrate. Someone had even brought their cornhole set and there was a tournament taking place. The buzz of talking was loud and cheerful, and everyone was enjoying what would probably be the last nice day of fall before winter took hold.

"Does that taste... right to you?" Stella asked her friend.

"Tastes fine to me. What do you mean?" Lizzie replied.

"I mean this burger. It tastes rancid. And the bun tastes like it's moldy but I don't see any spots. It smells that way too."

"Maybe that's what happens when you go without food for three days. You forget what it tastes like." Lizzie shrugged and took a bite of her burger. Juices dripped down her fingers onto the paper plate below. Stella resisted the need to gag and set hers down.

"Yeah, maybe. I guess I wouldn't know." She got up and walked over to the cake table. She looked down at the cake, looking to see if there was still a corner piece left. Printed on it was a picture of Brett and her, his arm wrapped around her shoulder. Underneath it said, The bond between siblings is stronger than nature itself. She wondered who came up with that dumb quote. Probably the neighbor Terry, he was always saying stupid shit like that. She used the spatula provided to scoop up a corner piece and headed back to her spot on the picnic table.

Lizzie had a clean plate and was wiping her hands on a napkin. "Ooh that looks good. I'm going to get a piece too," she said, getting up and heading in that direction. Stella sat down and took a huge bite of her cake. She spit it right back out onto the plate. It tasted disgusting, like rotten milk and vomit. She stared at it, not believing what she just experienced. She looked up, searching for Brett in the crowd. She found him and locked eyes with him. His brow creased and his eyes looked as terrified as she felt.

***

Stella scarfed down her dinner - an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies. At this point, she was desperate. She had spent the entire last week eating despite the rancid taste of the food. She had gotten over that quickly, and at this point it seemed like a minor inconvenience. She had consumed unbelievable amounts of food: entire loaves of bread, whole packages of Oreos, a whole watermelon plus one of those big tubs of ice cream in one sitting. She even tried cooking a giant batch of soup and eating the whole thing. It all made her want to vomit but she didn't care. She was so hungry.

She wiped the cookie crumbs from her mouth and headed to the bathroom as she heard her cell phone ring. It was Brett. “We have to go back,” he said, “She did this to us. She cursed us.”

“How will we even find her? I don’t want to get lost again. What are we even going to do to her?”

“We’ll backtrack from the road where we were found. We’ll bring our GPS and look for any broken branches we left behind when we ran away from her. I’ll bring a baseball bat and beat her until she lifts the curse. She's an old woman and it won't take much. If we don't do anything, I think we’re going to die,” Brett hung up.

Stella looked up in the mirror as she washed her hands. Brett was right. Stella could barely recognize herself because in the last week she had lost over 40 pounds. She was a mere skeleton of who she had been. The skin on her cheeks sagged, wrinkled and empty. She was pale and her cheekbones looked as though they were going to poke right through her thin skin. The skin on her arms hung like the head of a disciplined puppy, flapping as she moved them around. Her collarbones looked like chicken wings after you've eaten all the meat off and are licking your fingers.

What scared her most were her eyes. Sunken and hollow. Circles underneath that looked darker than any corpse she had seen. And they were angry. Angrier than she had ever remembered being.

***

When Stella saw Brett she couldn't help but gasp. He looked like her - muscles withered away, skin hanging low, bones looking like they were forcing their way out. His eyes were dark, empty and hollow. Anger boiled beneath them, and she was sure hers looked the same.

They could smell that mouthwatering, savory, rich soup from the road. Just barely. They had no need for a GPS. They pushed through the brush and walked into the forest. Stronger and stronger the heavenly smell got until they reached the clearing, crossing it quickly. The old wooden door was still open and inviting. Their stomachs were roaring like bears fighting off an enemy. Walking in, they surrounded the bubbling cauldron, pausing for a moment and taking it in their nostrils. Dropping his bat to the floor, Brett reached for a bowl.

“Back for more I see?” the old woman's shrill voice cut through the air. Brett and Stella were already ladling the soup into bowls and slurping it down as fast as they could, the heat blistering their mouths. They took no notice of the woman or the pain. The old woman smiled but her eyes didn’t. “I told you you’d be back. Now I don’t think you’ll ever be able to leave.”

***

Leaves crunched under the old woman's feet. She tried to still herself, but the excitement made it difficult. It was the catch that gave her the thrill. Right now she felt like a fisherman when the pole pulls a little bit from a fish nibbling. She peered through the thick brush that concealed her, watching her hut from the edge of the grassy clearing. Two women and a man were creeping their way across, edging closer to the open door of the hut. "Anybody home? We need some help," one of them called.

Now all the old woman had to do was wait for the bite.