A Strange Kind of Hunger | FIRST DRAFT

Stone Cold

Jonathan allows the creature to guide his movements, feeling an uncanny sense of calm as legs that don't quite seem his own anymore guide him homeward. Dipping and bowing below the horizon, the last of the sun's rays are too puny to cut between regiments of pines, but he takes a shortcut through the woods anyway. Or maybe the creature does; it keeps up a susurrus of whispered reassurance in the back of his mind. Oddly comforting, given the circumstances.

His thoughts flick through everything that's happened in the past day; everything that seems too much to bear. His head feels like soup. Thick, murky, unfathomable, leaving a foul taste in his mouth.

Eventually the soup begins to take a coherent shape, one that seems to flick between Jesse and Robert just too fast for him to notice the change. Jonathan thought he was done with Robert, done with strange theories and even stranger stories, plucked from a mind he could barely comprehend, even then. A mind not unlike a star: beautiful, brilliant, burning out. Too hot to hold without getting scorched. He thought — well, he didn't think Jesse would want him. Most men don't, and still more regard him with quiet contempt. Though the time when he cared about what other people thought is long gone, maybe that's why he can't shake the shimmer of Robert and his stars.

You have a wonderful mind; the creature breaking into his stream of consciousness half-surprises him. Do not think yourself unworthy.

What's it to you what I think of myself? He finds that by concentrating on the words he can hold a sort of conversation. I don't even know what you are.

I am part of you now, says the creature, and its a strangely comforting thing to hear. I can hear your thoughts. See your desires.

What do they look like? He has to know.

Difficult. Tangled. I am not sure you know what you want.

That figures. He doesn't know what he wants, not exactly; he can't imagine what it must be like to be an outsider looking into his mind. The thought is disturbing, like the dreams in which he finds himself exiled from his body.

Do you have a name? An impulsive question, but Jonathan is curious by nature.

There's a pause; Jonathan sees flashes of memories he doesn't own, as if the creature is searching for something.

I do not, comes its eventual reply. Some of my kind do, but I have never found a reason to take one.

The creature fall silent, and Jonathan's thoughts are his own once more. Darkness almost completely envelopes the forest, thick tendrils of shadow seeping from the looming trees; there are no sounds. None at all, which is somehow more unsettling than the usual symphony of owl hoots, crickets and late-crooning birds. Waving a hand over his face, Jonathan discovers he's once more in control of his movements. His house isn't far away.

Walking on, Jonathan feels a shiver burst through his body. He's tired again: a numbing tiredness that cuts down to the bone. The shivers come faster, making him acutely aware of how the air feels like icy breath on his face, how the fever he's all but forgotten about has returned with a vengeance. For a brief moment the world lurches, then he feels the creature take control. Steadying his movements until the spots dancing across his vision recede.

It is past your bedtime, little one, it says, and he can't tell if it's joking or not.

Shush. He's noticed something; something that's impossible to miss, even with his exhausted eyes. A shawl. Dangling from the bough of a a tree, its rose pattern wilting forlornly, colours dulled by the most tenacious of late evening sunbeams. If he didn't know better he would think it'd just been forgotten, left by some rosy-cheeked lover as she left a summer bower — but he does know better. People don't spend too much time in that part of the woods if they can help it, and they certainly don't leave things there.