The Death Thief

The Hungry Man

The scream burned my tongue and stretched my jaw as wide as it could go. I hoped that it rattled the ancient trees and echoed down the riverbed so that it drew in every manner of beast within range, in hopes of creating a diversion and giving me some small chance of evading this crazed cannibal.

"No, no!" he shouted after spitting out the bloody patch of hair and flesh. "It's not what it looks like!"

He raised his hands up, cowering slightly beneath the volume of my shriek. At some point though, I simply ran out of air and my cry settled. He seemed to take that as an indication that I had dropped my guard because he took a step forward with a sheepish grin upon his long, gaunt face. However, seeing his movements as an impending attack and having successfully saturated my lungs with air again, my auditory assault renewed.

"Can you please keep it down?" he asked, wincing as he massaged his temples. "It's been a rough couple months and I have hunger migraines."

"Then eat off the dollar menu," I said, the words coming out between heaving gasps, my voice echoing the shiver seizing the whole of my body. I took a few steps back, but then, my eyes glanced over at the woman, still prone upon the ground, her skull white beneath the cool glow of the moon against the bed of her long, dark hair. A new more pathetic cry, rattled out of me as my spine gave out and I hunched over with the weight of my fears. "You're going to kill me," I mumbled, my words barely breaking past my trembling lips.

Isn't this what I wanted, I thought. If it wasn't, then what was?

I grabbed my own head, my face contorting with exhaustion, frustration, and fear. I took a few more steps back and the man's eyes lit with excitement.

"If that's what you think, then yes, I will kill you. Run! Fear me!" He lunged forward, hands up with his fingers arched and menacing. He still had to scale the embankment to reach me, but in that moment I felt the reality of death, just as I had when the knife brushed against my quivering neck. And just as I had dropped my weapon of destruction without hesitation, my instincts sent me straight for a large branch discarded upon the ground. I lifted it high above my head and swung it down with the goal of splitting his skull in two.

"I lied!" he cried, pressing himself against the embankment and narrowly dodging my attack. "I was just trying to add some dramatic effect to make you leave!"

As he cowered against the slope, I lost my footing. Without a skull to meet my swing, the branch kept on going and the weight of it pulled me down with it. I tumbled into the riverbank, rolling over to the dead woman's side, stopping just short of the gaping hole in her head.

Again I screamed, my body so stiff with adrenaline I couldn't properly pull myself away from the blood stained bone of her cracked skull. It was my assailant that finally freed me from the grip of Death's handiwork, his bony fingers digging beneath my shoulders and tugging me onto my feet.

"Please stop screaming," he begged, his thin hands giving me a slight shake as I stared into the lifeless eyes of the recently deceased. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Tell that to her," I cried, finally looking at him in full. His light blue eyes sat deep within his skull. His whole face looked to be slowly seeping inward with not an ounce of fat to pillow the sharp features of his cheeks and chin.

"I didn't kill her! It's just..." His words trailed with a groan, his eyes looking over to the woman as if he expected her to give him an answer. I, however, took advantage of his distraction and ripped myself from his grip.

He didn't immediately chase me. Perhaps he really did just want me to leave and maybe I could have fled, but where would I have gone? What would I be left with after that? Someone would eventually come looking for this woman and maybe someone already was. While no one would be looking for me. I had to stay if I wanted to be found.

So I recovered my branch and turned to find the man with a disheartened groan hunching his shoulders.

"Please just go," he whined.

My ears were deaf to his words and I charged forward with no clear plan in mind. I only hoped that a man so thin and haggard, driven by hunger to cannibalism, would be easy to strike down with a well placed swing.

I lunged forward, again raising the branch above my head, but it was a slow, clunky movement and not nearly as swift as I had hoped. He reacted with time to spare, grabbing hold of the branch mid-swing and then with a twist of his body, he threw me to the ground. With me prone upon my back, he straddled me, kneeling down so his legs pinned mine while his hands released the branch and sought my wrists instead. Though, he looked like a dry leaf just waiting for a passing breeze to pluck him up and carry him away, he had a surprising amount of strength hidden upon his lanky frame. I was effectively trapped.

"Okay, let's start over. My name is Bungee and I did not kill that woman over there." He gestured with his head, though his eyes wouldn't leave mine. "Now I could rightfully explain what happened here, but that would get you wrapped up in something that you can't get out of. So I'm doing you a favor and telling you to just turn around and..."

His words were cut off by a swift kick to his side, that sent him tumbling off of me. A kick that had not come from me.

"Bungee, what the hell are you doing attacking fresh meat? You certainly can't be that damn hungry."

There, towering above me and glaring at Bungee with a mixture of annoyance and pity, was the woman still missing a chunk of her scalp. Her remaining hair, however, fluttered upon the light breeze funneling through the trees and down the empty riverbed. The fine strands were like dark, silken threads that created an intricate web against the moonlight. With her lush, red lips, wide brown eyes, and strong jaw, she could have been a model posing for a photoshoot. It was only the bloody scalp that ruined her statuesque image.

"Look, Calista, you're not going to like what I have to say," said Bungee with a nervous smile.

"You...you were...why are you..." I couldn't find words. My lungs struggled with what air I had left and my brain floated upon a wave of nausea that threatened to empty the little contents my stomach had.

"Okay, the both of you," she said, reaching up to her temple with a deep, dramatic breath. "Stop talking all at once. I have a terrible headache and I..."

As her fingers combed through her hair, she made contact with the fresh wound upon her skull. In that moment her body froze. Except for her eyes. Those widened and bulged. As dawning struck her, her nostrils flared, her lips grew thin, and the muscles in her neck tensed.

"Cali... Let me explain," said Bungee, rising to his feet before taking a couple tentative steps backwards. "You were dead when I found you. You should be thanking me, really."

"Thanking you!" she bellowed, her back hunched and her arms taut as they readied for an attack. "Thanking you! Did you turn me? Did you?!"

"You were dead Calista. I can't let meat go to waste." He shrugged, but continued to back up. As for me, my breathing got worse and I was barely able to keep myself propped up in order to watch their fight unfold.

"Then, why am I walking and talking to you? I can't regrow this hair back now dammit! You ruined everything," she screeched, lunging towards Bungee, who couldn't escape any further as he was pressed up against the embankment. She, however, didn't take a swing at him. Instead she gave his chest a few pitiful pounds of her fist before falling to her knees and shaking with unrepressed sobs. "You ruined everything... I was supposed to be a vampire!"

My mind surrendered and faded into black.