Hunger

Eliza is desperately trying to erase who she used to be, but her past proves impossible to leave behind.

Photo by David Clode on Unsplash

Fiction—Written August 2022 for the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge. The prompt was Suspense / A tattoo removal shop / Fried chicken.

The smell of grease and gasoline drifted up through an open window, carried by a breeze too hot to be soothing. Eliza’s skin itched and she suppressed the urge to writhe in the uncomfortable waiting room chair. Hard plastic stuck to her skin.

Through the back window of the tattoo removal shop, Eliza watched a convertible pull out of a drive-through. A group of teenagers passed through the parking lot, laughing and holding buckets of fried chicken.

Eliza clenched her hands on her knees and ignored her hunger. She tried to remember what it had felt like to be so free and light-hearted, to laugh with her friends and eat unhealthy food.

That girl felt like a different person now, someone Eliza had left for dead when she agreed to ink herself with the symbol of people she now knew were the worst idea of her life.

Another woman sat in a chair across from her, looking down at her knees. The smell of fried chicken clung to her, and there was a smear of grease across the front of her t-shirt. One of her hands looped around her wrist, the very edge of a black text tattoo creeping out from beneath her fingers.

Eliza’s tattoo, a snake with mouth open and fangs extended, wrapped around her bicep under her sleeve. She glanced back out the window, but only saw the same line of cars waiting at the drive-through. Matthew couldn’t find her, not five states away in another crew’s territory.

Even in her thoughts, it felt like a lie.

The last time someone had tried to run, his body had been found in a park, limbs scattered and most of his organs missing. Eliza could imagine her own corpse in its place, her chest an empty cavity. But he had been stupid enough to stay in town overnight to say goodbye to his girlfriend. She hadn’t stood still until she was halfway across the country.

She had gotten away, and soon this tattooed reminder of the life she’d run from would be gone. Another breeze drifted in through the open window. The smell of the fried chicken turned her stomach, nausea climbing her throat, even as her hunger sharpened.

The woman across the waiting room let out a single dry sob before quieting. Her skin was flushed and pink. Saliva pooled under Eliza’s tongue. She was starving and had been for weeks, ever since that day she had turned her back on those who had made her what she was.

Eliza felt it when something changed outside. The air stilled, but more than that she could feel the pressure like a sudden rise on the barometer. She looked out the window again.

In the parking lot outside, in the middle of the roadway so traffic had to weave around him, stood Matthew. His snake tattoo crawled up his neck, the tail curling into a hook under one eye.

Eliza’s heart pounded hard.

Matthew pointed up at her, his fingers covered in black and pewter rings. Like Matthew’s own, Eliza’s eyesight was sharp. So sharp she could see Matthew’s lips shape her name. Matthew traced the curl of his tattoo with a finger and pointed at Eliza.

Eliza was weaker now than she had ever been, but Matthew had always been stronger than her, stronger than anyone. It had been a comfort when they were on the same side, but now it just meant she would die as quickly or as slowly as he liked.

She needed to eat. She needed to eat now.

“I’m so sorry,” Eliza said to the woman she shared the lobby with. “I know this is a lot to ask, but could you come with me to a vending machine? I don’t have anything and it’s been days.”

“I don’t have any cash on me,” the woman said. “Sorry.”

“Please,” Eliza said, letting her real desperation ooze into her voice. “I’m so hungry. I couldn’t take anything with me when I left, and I just—” Her eyes filled with tears, warm as blood. “I’m just so hungry.”

The woman took her phone out of her pocket and glanced down at the clock. “Alright,” she said, “but we have to be back in five minutes. I have my appointment.”

“Of course,” Eliza said. “Thank you, really, thank you so much.”

Ten minutes later, Eliza stood in the building’s bathroom, washing her hands, the water turning pink. She risked a look out through the frosted glass of the bathroom window. Matthew hadn’t moved.

Eliza ducked back, pressing her spine to the tile wall. If she left the building, she was dead. Matthew was a patient hunter and had always said fear added flavor.

He would let her terror build until she fled like a pheasant spooked from the grass by a hunting dog. Only then would she feel his hands in her hair, his teeth on her neck.

As she was, exhausted and still starving, she wouldn’t even be able to outrun him. She made her way back to the waiting room, halting at every window. Every time she approached the glass, Matthew was staring directly at her.

Only moments after Eliza reentered the lobby, a young woman opened the interior door and stepped through. Her name tag read “Suzanne.”

“Rose?” Suzanne asked, glancing around the waiting room. Eliza could smell her, the subtle notes of her jasmine perfume a thin veneer over something rawer and more human. Eliza’s stomach rumbled.

“She stepped out,” Eliza said. “I believe there was some kind of emergency?”

Suzanne frowned down at her clipboard. “You’re Eliza?”

“That’s me.”

Suzanne made a note on the paper clamped onto her clipboard. “I suppose we’ll just have to move you up. Follow me and we’ll get you sorted.”

Eliza followed Suzanne, raising her hand to cover her mouth and unhinging her jaw with a quiet pop like cracking a finger joint. Her second row of teeth extended from her gums as she shut the door behind her. She was still so very hungry.

Author’s note:

This was a hard one! I added something supernatural to try and make up for my lack of experience writing the genre, but suspense is tricky. Can you believe I still haven’t been assigned horror in one of these competitions?

Thank you for reading!

Emily