“What’s happening down there?” Joel asked from the darkness of the room where he was trapped with Lara and Stephen.
“It’s dinner time,” Stephen answered as though it were all perfectly normal.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Dinner time…”
“That sounds like Charlotte,” said Lara — her voice quivering with fright. “What are they doing to her? What’s happening?”
“I’m more concerned with how come they’re eating and yet I’m still locked in here,” said Stephen. He stumbled his way, through the blackness, to the locked door and started to bang on it as Charlotte screamed on downstairs. “Hello? Anyone? Come on! I’m hungry too! Why aren’t you letting me out? A joke’s a joke… Come on!”
“My friend is in trouble,” Joel pointed out, “let me out so I can help her! Please!”
“Now why would I want to do a thing like that?” asked Stephen. He carried on banging the door, “I’m supposed to be down there with them!” he reminded Joel and Lara.
“They’re eating her?” asked Lara as another loud scream echoed through the house.
“I’d say so — yes,” said Stephen. “They’d better save me some that’s all I can say.”
“You’re fucking nuts! The lot of you!” Lara cried.
“We’re nuts?”
“You eat people?”
“We’re nuts?” Stephen repeated. “You’re nuts! You haven’t even tried it! If you had — you’d realise you were the crazy ones for going so long without trying it! It’s the best fucking meat in the world. Tastes so good. One taste — you never forget. Tell you what, if they’ve left any…” another scream filled the room, “…I’ll sneak some up for you to try. Fair’s fair…”
“You’re sick!” Joel shouted.
“I was sick,” Stephen pointed out, “when I was young. I was about five or six, if memory serves correctly, and I caught some disease. Doctors didn’t know what it was. They had me wired to all these machines in the hospital… My chances of survival, they said, were slim to none. My dad… My dad unplugged me from that bed and took me home. He didn’t want me dying in some strange hospital bed. Once home he stayed with me, day in and day out… He fed me this meat… A strange taste which I had never known before but loved… A week later, on this strange diet, and I had enough strength to leave the bed. Two weeks later I was running around in the woods with my younger brother… Years later, occasionally getting another taste of that strange meat, my dad took me into the barn where he had been preparing it… He told me what it was. He showed me. A person. I didn’t know who it was. Some stranger. He had taken them. Skinned them. Fed them to his family. At first I was disgusted. I wanted to run but I didn’t. I was so young — where would I have gone? Mother was there, to reassure me it was okay. She told me they were bad people and it was their way of making amends for their wicked ways — they’d give themselves up to offer us strength in our hours of need. And strength they did give us… None of us… None… We never got ill. Not even a cold. We gained the strength and protection of those whom we devoured… Our own medication to keep us safe in this disease-ridden world…” He started to laugh, “I’m sorry, I can’t keep it up. I’m just playing with you… We just like the taste. Seriously… I mean it… If they leave any of your friend… I’ll get you some to try. Can’t say fairer than that.” He started to laugh when, suddenly, he saw a shadow in the darkness lunge at him. Before he had time to react a fist, hard as concrete, connected to his face causing him to stumble back blindly.
“What’s happening?” Lara screamed when she heard the commotion — unaware that Joel had managed to free himself from his ropes.
Stephen stood up, propping himself against the wall, in time for another fist to connect — this time to his stomach. A punch, so hard, it took the wind from him but he didn’t have time to react or attempt to catch his breath as a knee connected to his face; a loud crack from the bridge of his nose as the bone splintered under the skin. No relent. No forgiveness. Another knee directly in the same place as the last. Another. And another. By the time the blows stopping coming, Stephen slumped to the floor barely conscious. The last thing he saw, through instantly blackened eyes, was a large size eleven foot heading down towards his face.
“Joel?” Lara asked when the banging and crashing came to a stop. There was silence. “Joel?”
“Yeah,” he said — out of breath. “Talk to me…” he said.
“Is he dead?” she asked. Joel used the sound of his voice to find his way back to where Lara was tied to the chair. “Joel?” she asked again, “Did you kill him?”
“I think so. I hope so,” he told her as he fumbled with the ropes which bound her. He stopped when another of Charlotte’s screams ripped through the house. “We have to get out of here,” he said. He carried on with the ropes.
“What about the others?”
“What about them?” he asked. “They’re probably already dead… And if they’re not dead yet,” he said as another scream pointed out that at least one of them was still alive, “they’ll be dead soon.”
“We can’t just leave them,” said Lara.
“When I said I wanted us to be together… I didn’t mean in a stew!” he said.
“I’m not leaving them,” she said as the ropes were pulled away from her wrists. He leant forward and started to undo the ones around her ankles. “If you love me — you’ll help me…”
“This is fucking insane,” he said. “You know that, right? This whole situation… We need to get out of here. We need to… We can get help for them when we’re out!” he told her.
“I can’t leave it… Them… They’re our friends.”
“Fine!” he said. “But the first sign of trouble or even a hint that they’re dead… We leave.”
“Yes,” she said. She dropped the ropes to the floor — free at last.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Charlotte was lying motionless on the table — chunks of flesh missing from her body in various places, two deep black holes where her pretty eyes used to be. The majority of the flesh was missing from Robert’s end of the body.
“What’s the matter,” he asked as he swallowed the last piece he had in his mouth, “you’re not hungry? Be a shame to waste her.”
Suzanne looked at Robert whilst nibbling on one of Charlotte’s fingers — which she had already bitten off. “You just killed our brother… Her son…”
“You were there, Suzanne, it was kill or be killed. Right? Right?” He wiped the excess blood from around his mouth using a part of his napkin. “What do you think?” he asked Andrea.
“I just wish we could have talked…”
“That’s what we’re doing now.”
“Talked before anything happened,” she went on. “We used to talk.”
“They killed Stephen… Your other son… The three of them… They plotted together… Fucking killed…”