The Hungry

Hungry

By: Koleun Tabor



                 It was just like any other day. The rain was cold, the sky was grey, and my coffee as always was black. I hated my job. Sorting through government files wasn’t worth the paycheck and the hours didn’t let me get out much. There was one diamond in the pile of coal that was my life though, the girl who sat at the help desk, Jenna. With her long brunette hair and her blue eyes, and far from flawed smile, she was easily the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Every morning since we’ve met we’ve had breakfast in the break room on the top floor.

                 Until one day… after our first date the night before, she showed up to the break room for breakfast and she looked… well, dreadful. Her eyes were sunken and she looked cold. In a panic, I jumped from my table and took her into my arms. I called her name but she was unresponsive. I placed my hand on her forehead and found that she was in fact, cold. Her body no longer held onto any of the beautiful warmth she had just hours before. As I held her, I noticed blood on her shirt…

                 “Oh no… Jenna…” Tears began to well up in my eyes, blurring my vision.

                 I slowly began to peel her shirt back, revealing bite marks covering her stomach and chest. One in particular which broke the skin looked red, swollen, and the blood which leaked from the wound was a festering black. My stomach was churning but I couldn’t bring myself to leave her there alone and scared. I lifted her into my arms and charged out of the break room. A woman in a purple dress sat at her desk sifting through some files. I cried to her, but when she looked up however, a look of horror filled her eyes as she lifted looked upon Jenna’s condition.

                 “Please! You’ve got to help her! I… I don’t know what to do.”

                 She glanced around the room, biting her bottom lip. The look of thought burdened her brow very heavily. Before I could ask her again to help she lifted Jenna’s ankles up and we carried her together across the office; laying her on a coffee table. I collapsed onto the floor and watched the woman strip Jenna’s shirt off and begin tending to the bite. She took a bottle of nail polish remover and a handkerchief from her purse and began to clean the wound; but even when she scrubbed it directly Jenna just laid there. Her chest slowly rising and falling was the only sign of life I could pick out at this point.

                 “There’s not much I can do for your friend... bu-“

                 It was then when Jenna jumped from the table pushing the woman onto the ground. To my horror she began to rip the woman’s throat from her neck… with her teeth. I began to vomit. Around the time I began to dry heave… was when the woman’s screams faded away and the sounds of flesh ripping took their place. I rolled over, and saw Jenna sitting cross-legged in a pile of the woman’s intestines eating them and playing with them like a child. Her eyes were a milky white but her smile was still as beautiful as ever…

                 “Jenna please… she was just trying to help!”

                 Suddenly she begins to cry… holding her face in her bloodied hands. I knelt at her side and placed my hand on her shoulder; wondering how someone so sweet and so innocent could eat another human being.

                 “I was just so… hungry.” She said. Her voice was shaken.

                 I don’t know why… but I didn’t break for the door, or call the police. I just held her; the two of us together in the helpful woman’s remains until she looked up at me and kissed my lips. I felt a slight tingle followed by an indescribable pain in my temple. As I sat there, my stomach began to growl and the guts Jenna was so happily enjoying weren’t looking half bad…   as the growling grew louder and my mouth began to water Jenna looked at me with her big blue eyes, and offered me a handful of meat.

“Won’t you join me for breakfast?”