The Drifters

Chapter Eight

Noumea, New Caledonia - 20 Days Before the Explosion

A woman passes by the outskirts of the church and Mael watches. She is wearing a tight pair of black leggings, with bright pink and green Nike shoes. Her torso is scantily covered by a plain-black tank top, with its neckline cut low - very low. Her breasts - huge and fake - bulge beneath her skin-tight top, heaving and jiggling slightly as she walks. Her ass, so defined and curvaceous, is wrapped tight enough that he can see the outline of her g-string. Mael licks his lips. Truly, she is the definitive ideal of sex appeal, the absolute prime cut of lust.

He continues watching her intently, his mouth watering. The hunger he feels is not that of lust, but deep pitted gluttony - a ravenous desire to consume. He pictures the woman naked, on his bed, legs spread wide - lips wider - as her fake tits sit unnaturally perky in the air, sagging only slightly. The curves of her legs wrap around his imagined body, naked and ready, as she pulls him in.

Mael feels nothing. But for the first time in his life, that pit of longing leaves him not desperate, but rather content. He places his hand on his stomach - his divine purpose twists and moves beneath. 

Over the past week, Mael had set up a faux-charity under the pretences that one could donate food of any kind so the church could dish out to the homeless. The campaign was an overwhelming success. Food from all over found its way into the church's coffers, nearly overflowing the storage area, leaving Mael to freely stuff his gut as he pleased. While the new desperate hunger was sure to be a problem in the future, he accepted that as but a sacrificial drawback to what was - he considered - a great gift.

Something grew within him, of that he was sure. The same 'demon' that plagued his cousin during Bertrand's tragic final days. No, he thinks, not a demon. A God.

Mael glances over at the corner of his study where a full-length mirror leaned up against the wall sits. He is wearing a traditional bishop's gown - plain, black and unassuming - with a pair of Manhattan Richelieu's hiding beneath the robe. They are timeless, patterned black, with a signature Louis Vuitton stamp in the heel. The pair set the church back over a million francs, or ten-thousand US dollars. His hair has darkened over the years into a healthy, thick chestnut brown, shaped and styled to perfection, framing his suitably handsome features. A befitting image of the Lord, he muses. 

His partner hiding beneath twists in agreement and Mael smiles, his chiselled face turning at the edges. He has become it, and it has become him. With its initial need for food satiated, Mael began to sense it during the quieter times of the evening. A distant, fleeting instinct. Nothing more than a notion. But quickly, over the course of a week, he began to feel and sense more of his companion - and, he imagined, it was beginning to understand him.

He figures from his initial contraction, the gift could be transferred by prolonged contact - perhaps even by air. But, he thinks, if it can quickly spread through the airways then everyone in Noumea would have it by now. No, it must have been passed to me by chance during the hours we spent alone together.

Mael moves back over to the window. The woman is gone. If, his thoughts continue, the gift is able to be transferred by prolonged contact, but not short-term contact, then it's safe to assume I caught it by being close enough for cousin Bertrand's saliva to have entered my body in one way or another. I have heard only of one family going missing near eastern New Caledonia - with the amount of poverty in this country I'd imagine if the gift was more active amongst the people the entire island would be thrown into disarray.

Mael scratches his chin. The light growth of stubble grazes the tips of his fingers and he curses himself for not shaving that morning.

If that's the case, then perhaps my own saliva will be able to pass the gift onto others.