Chandra reached for him, but missed by a mile. She bared her teeth and waddled after him.

“Crazy bitch,” the man said, jogging backward as he spoke. “Ever try a salad?”

“I’m hungry.”

“I bet you are.” And he turned and disappeared over the horizon.

She wanted to follow him, to flay the flesh from his bones with her teeth, but the buffet called to her. He would only be an appetizer anyway. She turned back around and shambled down the road, in the direction of her food fetish fantasy. The street was a frying pan, the yellow lines strips of bacon. The trees were fried eggrolls, the bushes fried wontons, the grass beef and broccoli. Fatigue began setting in, but her hunger was the mightier beast, and she stormed forward.

She left her neighborhood and reached the busier streets. Cars sped by, the passengers leering out the windows at the blood-covered atrocity stalking down the sidewalk. Some honked their horns, others hollered their revulsion from their windows.

People walking along avoided getting too close, couples pressed tightly together. All wrinkling their noses and curling their lips and furrowing their brows.

“So hungry...”

Chandra reached for a woman, got hold of an arm, but it was jerked away. The woman voiced her displeasure, but it was only empty static to Chandra. She swiped at a couple walking hand in hand, wrapped her fingers around the man’s swinging wrist, brought it to her mouth, opened wide, but he pulled away just in time, then shoved her away. She stumbled off the curb, rolled into the street, lay there like a beached whale. A station wagon skidded, screeching to a halt just in front of her, just a hair away from splattering her food-filled body across the concrete.

“Jesus. Are you okay?” The driver’s head poked out of his window.

Chandra struggled to find her footing. She rolled in the street, just barely aware of the pebbles and sharp rocks biting into her skin.

“Let me help you.”

A hand reached out to her, and she reached for the hand, yanked it like a lawnmower chord. The man crashed to the ground beside her and she was on him in a millisecond. Her teeth sunk into the soft flesh. She didn’t know what part she bit, but when her mouth filled with flavor and meaty richness, she moaned with pleasure.

“Shit! Jesus Christ!” He tried to scurry away, but Chandra rolled and shimmied on top of him.

She ripped mouthfuls of meat away from his body, swallowed. Screams and shouts blared all around her, and she wept as she ate, knew what she was doing was bad. She knew she had become something...else. But her stomach controlled her now. It sent the brainwaves now. It told her to keep eating, to ignore the pounding of the fists, to ignore the pain-filled groans and whimpers. Other hands found her body, tried to pull her away from her meal. She snapped at them, reaching her head back as far as she could.