She tucks her finger under the layer, her pinky slipping beneath, and pulls. Like a sheet, it folds away, revealing a face. A face just like hers; no older than her, maybe two years at most, still free of wrinkles with a thin nose that looks frail and easy to break, a slight dent in the bridge. His hair is auburn, straight and messy, falling over his forehead in spikes. There’s a caramel tinge to his skin that she can recognize despite the wash of lifelessness in his cells.

And he looks delicious.

Her stomach growls.

That warmth . . . I’m so hungry . . .

She places her hand on his stomach and tears through layers—all of that fabric, all of that fabric and clothes and fabric, layers and layers of fabric—until she has a pallet of bare skin under her fingertips. She brushes her hands along his chest, savoring how smooth it is to the touch. How strong and sturdy it must have been! How nice it might have been to press my head against and feel the pulse of life! With one finger, she stabs through, puncturing him like he did her. Blood pools into the center of his stomach. A low-pressure spout. A puddle of heat. She leans down and drinks from it like a food bowl, rubbing her arms across his exposed body. The heat! She drinks and drinks until she is full and even then she drinks some more, relishing in the warmth.

Through her fit of dehydrated frenzy, she has a hazy, red thought. A thought the sane part of her still holds on to with desperate curiosity. Morbid intrigue. A thought that consumes her just as she consumes he.

“Am I . . . ?”

“I think I remember . . .”

“I think I remember being . . .”

Is this death?

The silver-haired man stands in front of the building, just outside the reach of the streetlight’s yellow glow. His eyes are closed, but he listens. He listens and he waits. When he no longer hears the thumping, when the space within those concrete walls no longer beats with life, he grins, opens his eyes, and turns down the street to let her finish feeding.

CHAPTER XVIII

She loses all sense of self. Her mind, starved to the edge of a precipice, suppresses all function but that of feeding. And feed she does. She feeds until she gorges herself like a glutton and grows drowsy. She abandons her feast; her arms and legs lazily inch over to her mattress, dragging her bloated belly across the floor. There she collapses onto the bedding, passing out into a deep sleep that only the dead can experience. A sleep void of dreams, for the dead cannot enjoy such a luxury.