A Strange Kind of Hunger | FIRST DRAFT

Fly Away

The silence after Gabriel's story comes to an end is achingly hollow, broken only by the rasping sound of Jesse's breathing. Tainted with death. At first Jonathan's lips can barely move, stuttering over the words he so desperately wants to speak.

"How do we save him?" His voice is shaking, nerves trembling at the prospect of finally being able to bring some relief instead of just more pain. Jesse is still slumped in Robert's arms, lifeless as a doll, but the two of them are sat on the bed now, and Robert's gentle, pianist's fingers are carding their way through soft-spun, golden hair.

Gabriel looks down, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. Nervous, maybe — or afraid. The look in his eyes is one of craving, a desperate need to be by his brother's side, but the look in Robert's eyes holds him back.

"Well, we could — we could try." He sounds unsure, unwilling to voice the notion in case he is wrong, but glancing down to the gun that Jonathan somehow still has a firm grip on.

"Try what?"

"Transferring Medea to another — another vessel."

Jonathan almost laughs at the simplicity of it. The ease. As if Jesse's soul isn't bound to his body by a tiny shred of visceral fear, as if a girl isn't dead and buried and hopelessly mutilated all for the sake of keeping him alive when the solution, the cure, was right there all along. It makes him sick to think of how that girl died, scared and alone; it makes him sicker to think of all the times Jesse could've died — yet he can't find it anywhere in his stuttering heart to be angry. Somehow he understands the twisting, choking feeling of holding someone's life in your hands and not really knowing if your plan will work.

"I'll do it." Robert speaks up before Jonathan can volunteer himself, voice harsh with sudden emotion that cracks into a series of rough, dry coughs. Gasping breaths that don't seem to come fast enough, until Jonathan can't bear to just watch anymore. His heart aches as he rushes to the bed, gun finally slipping from his grasp and falling, feather-soft, onto the quilt. Hands rubbing Robert's back until the fit subsides, feeling the sharpness of his spine through his shirt.

"I'll do it," says Jonathan, with quiet purpose. "Tell me what I have to do, and I'll do it."

Robert shoots him a quick, pleading glance. One that seems to say, if this can save Jesse, could it save me too?

"I'm sorry, love—" And it's the first time Jonathan's called anyone that in two years, the word slipping, electric, whiskey-bitter and wonderful, from his lips, "We don't even know if this is going to work."

"It's worth a shot," says Gabriel, joining them on the bed. Finally scooping Jesse into his arms, taking his brother's weight from Robert and cradling it, gentle, relieved. Tilting Jesse's head up to face Jonathan, he wipes a little of the blood away from the young man's lips. "Put your lips against his, let it happen."

To call it a kiss would be wrong; Jonathan leans over and joins his lips to Jesse's, exerting the barest bit of pressure. They're cracked and slick with blood — the girl's blood, he supposes — parted only far enough for breath, and straining with each shuddering rise of the chest. Desperate to find some air.

At first Jonathan feels nothing — then it's almost like a soft, silky thread that slips past his lips and down the back of his throat. Medea is slippery as she passes from one body to another, writhing like a fish but hardly painful; his chest flutters as he feels his creature wriggle along. It's working — the thought alone makes Jonathan's heart sing, the mind within his joining in an ethereal harmony.

Hello little one, comes a second voice, with a distinct, throaty timbre to it. Do these creatures even have throats? Jonathan hardly cares; he's too busy gazing at Jesse, at the tangle of black veins under his eyes that are fading, slipping away like breath on a mirror. Finally, he takes a single, unlaboured breath, body unfurling as he stretches. Limbs seemingly filled with some of the strength they had lost.

"Jesse!" All three of them speak at the same time; Jonathan, Robert and Gabriel can't hug him fast enough, hold him fast enough. He's alive. It's enough to make Jonathan want to laugh, cry, grab him and never, ever let go. Enough to make a golden moment where they can forget about the body and the blood and the gun.

"Easy, you're squishing me," says Jesse, and though his voice is still raspy and raw it seems firmer. Happier.

The moment barely lasts more than that — a moment. Soon the reality of it all comes crashing down on Jonathan, knocking the breath from his lungs and the jubilance from his mind. He really is a murderer now; nothing can erase Zachariah's cold body, lying between the bed and the door. Nothing can erase what he's done.

"What are we going to do now?" Robert asks, voice hollow.

On an impulse, Jonathan's mind flicks back to their earlier conversation. Their argument, if you can call it that — what Robert said about hating small town life has stuck with him, and it crawls back bearing a suggestion.

"We should shoot this town before anyone knows what we've done," he said, finding a firmness and conviction he didn't know he had. "Pack a bag and I'll meet you back here in fifteen minutes."

Scarcely waiting for a reply, Jonathan leaves just in time to catch Robert's agreement. He feels a ripple of energy flick through his joints, filling them with a sudden surge of speed as Medea settles under his breastbone like she's always been there; it barely takes any time at all before he's standing outside his house, staring at its little, wooden door.

It's sad, really, that that house has been almost his entire life since he's returned from medical school. That, aside from house calls, every minute of his days can be catalogued and contained within the house and neighboring surgery, yet he feels nothing but emptiness as he pushes through the door and begins to throw clothes, books, medical instruments into a trunk. He barely spares the house itself a second glance; in his mind it has only ever been the four walls and a roof under which he has taken shelter from the storms of life.

Returning to Robert's house, Jonathan reaches for his watch, realizing that it lies in his waistcoat pocket, somewhere on Robert's floor. He needn't have worried, though; Robert, Gabriel and Jesse are all assembled, worn, hollow but ready to leave. The door beckons them all, and beyond it the road that winds its way out of Hermansville, girdling the forest with a white strip of civilization. Beyond that, the world, inky in its blackness and endless in its possibilities.

In Jonathan's chest, Medea and his creature seem to circle each other, writhing with contented laziness. In his hand, Robert's hand is soft but firm. By his side, Gabriel and Jesse stand together, intertwined as brothers always seem to be.

"Shall we, gentlemen?" He feels their eyes on him, their murmurs of assent.

Jonathan reaches for the door, knowing his world will never be the same again.